


Castles and Curses

by Writesaber



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Can Be Read As Any Ship, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Just Fun and Fantasy and some Really Weird Fairy Tales, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 73,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23196586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writesaber/pseuds/Writesaber
Summary: She’d had a bad feeling about that spindle.Princess Kara Zorel only meant to close her eyes for a minute. She opens them to find that over two decades have passed for everyone but her. She’s become the heroine of a legend, known far and wide as Sleeping Beauty. And her baby cousin isn’t a baby anymore.In fact, he’s the king. The well-meaning but far too traditional king, who has no idea how his cousin awoke without true love’s kiss. But now that she’s awake, he decides the best thing for her to do is marry the aforementioned true love before the kingdom starts asking questions.But Kara has other ideas. Accompanied only by her almost-sister Alex, who has inexplicably turned into a frog during her absence, Kara sets out on a quest for adventure, to prove that a princess doesn’t always need a prince. She’ll come across a variety of colorful characters, rescue damsels (and a few boys) in distress, and maybe, just maybe, find out who was behind that sleeping curse to begin with. And who woke her up from it.(Otherwise known as: Kara is Sleeping Beauty and everyone else is other fairytale characters and they all mix with each other in a giant web of weirdness. A “choose your own ship” story!)
Comments: 100
Kudos: 53





	1. In Which Sleeping Beauty Awakens

The first thing Princess Kara Zorel wondered when she woke up was why she was lying on her back in a position suggestive of a corpse.

The second thing she wondered was why there was a maid's face inches from her own.

And the third thing she wondered was why the maid who owned the face was screaming.

As the maid, still screaming, ran out of the room, Kara pushed herself up hastily and looked around for a fire or an ogre or an invading army of dragon warriors or anything else that might have caused the woman's fright. She found nothing. The only thing out of the ordinary was the fact that she was not in her bedroom. She was in a small, dimly lit chamber, furnished only with the carved slab of white marble that she had apparently been lying on. She glanced down at her hands and discovered that she was holding a wilted rose; a fresh one lay on the floor where the maid had apparently dropped it. This was also odd, because Kara hated roses. Roses were for ordinary, everyday princesses who thought about nothing but dances and princes and embroidery, and Kara had never been one of those princesses.

She didn’t have much time to think about it, however, because the maid (who was favored with excellent lung capacity) had switched from screaming to bellowing, and the words she was bellowing made very little sense to Kara.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! She’s awake, Your Majesty! Awake without a kiss!”

Kara’s forehead always crinkled when she was confused, and she felt it crinkle now. _Why is it so important that I’m awake? And what’s this about a kiss?_

She had no time to think about this either, because the maid’s shouts sent the entire palace into chaos. Trays clattered, pots banged, objects fell to the ground as everyone dropped what they were doing to hear the news. In a matter of seconds, a deafening cacophony of shocked chatter, disbelieving gasps and pounding footsteps echoed through every hall and corridor in the castle. Several of those pounding footsteps stopped outside the door to the room Kara was sitting in, which was quickly thrown open. A tall, broad-shouldered man with dark curls ran into the room, followed by a half dozen servants and courtiers, all of whom seemed far more surprised to see Kara than they should have been. _I only slept a little while! Did I miss something important?_

“You’re awake!” the tall man cried. “Kara, you really are awake! I didn’t believe it, not at first, but you are, you truly are!” He stepped forward as if to throw his arms around her, but Kara sidestepped, staring intently at his face. She didn’t recognize him, although he seemed to recognize her. He had a serious, straight-laced kind of face, even though there were laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. He was handsome, and one curl of his black hair flopped down onto his forehead, and his blue eyes were-

Kara stopped. She knew those eyes. She’d looked into those eyes just a few minutes before she’d fallen asleep.

But when she had last seen them, those eyes had been set in a baby’s pudgy face. Kara remembered them curling up at the corners when their owner smiled a wide, toothless smile and reached out to stroke her hair with chubby fingers.

She glanced at the hands of the man in front of her. They were strong, soft hands, royal hands. The left one had a golden band on the fourth finger, and the right one a ruby signet ring. But the eyes were the same...

“I’m dreaming,” she said slowly, now feeling incredibly baffled. “I’m dreaming about my baby cousin all grown up, which is unusual because I only dream about food. And any minute I’m going to wake up and laugh to myself about what a strange dream this was, and then-“

“Kara,” the tall man who should have been a baby said, “you already woke up. I don’t know how. You weren’t supposed to, not yet. Not without the kiss. But you did. You’re not dreaming.”

“I have to be,” Kara said. “I know who you are; you’re Kal, my cousin. But you’re just a baby.“

“Not anymore.” He reached out and took her hand in hers. “Kara, something happened. Magic. You’ve been asleep for twenty-four years.”

In ordinary circumstances, Kara might have questioned the possibility of this. But the land of Kryptonia was a very magical land, and much stranger things had been known to happen, especially to princesses. So she accepted the explanation, partly because she knew magic could do anything and partly because magic was the only way to explain what was going on.

“Twenty-four years,” she repeated slowly, trying to grasp the implications. “But...it was my eighteenth birthday when I fell asleep. I’m forty-two years old!”

“No, Kara. The curse didn’t let you age. Time passed around you, but not for you. You’re still eighteen.”

“Curse? Someone cursed me?”

Kal nodded.

“Who?”

“We don’t know. My father must have told me the story a dozen times. You went up to the west tower to explore after your birthday breakfast. When you didn’t come back down, my father sent some of the servants to look for you. They found you asleep, on the floor, next to a spinning wheel. There was a message in your hand. It said that you’d pricked your finger on the spindle and been cursed to fall asleep for a hundred years, and only true love’s kiss could wake you.”

“A hundred years? You said it’s been twenty-four!” Suddenly Kara realized what else her cousin had said, and instantly reached for the sword that usually hung at her side (but didn’t today, because she was wearing a very formal, very uncomfortable gown. Which, like the rose, was something she would never have chosen on her own). “Someone _kissed_ me? While I was _asleep_?” She jumped up, ready to strangle her “rescuer” with her bare hands, but Kal quickly shook his head.

“No, Kara. No one kissed you. That’s what I can’t understand. You were supposed to sleep for a hundred years and wake up only with true love’s kiss. You woke up seventy-six years early, and there _was_ no kiss. You just opened your eyes, like nothing had happened at all.”

“So,” Kara said slowly, “you don’t know who cursed me to fall asleep...” Her voice trailed off.

Kal finished for her. “And we don’t know what- or _who_ \- woke you up.”

* * *

After sending away the servants and courtiers who had gathered to see if their princess really had awakened, Kal explained to Kara everything that had happened while she slept. It seemed that, over the course of twenty-four years, she had become many things she hadn’t been before.

She was no longer just a princess. She was now the cousin to the king. Her parents had died when she was young, and while she slept Kal’s parents had both gone on to join them, leaving her baby cousin- whom she still couldn’t stop thinking of as a baby- to rule in their stead. The crown would not have passed to Kara even if she’d been awake to take it; the laws of Kryptonia placed male heirs above female ones in the line of succession. (Kara might have fought that rule if she’d had any interest whatsoever in being queen, which she didn’t. Queens couldn’t learn how to swordfight or ride off into the woods unescorted or wander through the villages talking to the commoners like Kara did. Kara was not, and had never been, an ordinary princess).

She was also no longer just a cousin. She was an aunt. While she had been asleep, Kal had been turning himself into an accomplished warrior. On one of his journeys, because Kryptonia was a strange country and strange things often happened to its royals, he had found a dragon about to devour a lovely maiden. So, like all good princes, he had slain the beast, fallen in love with the woman (who, it turned out, was Princess Lois of the neighboring kingdom of Metropolis) and married her soon afterwards. They had had their first child, Prince Jon, a year ago, and another was on the way.

But the last thing Kara had become during her twenty-four years of slumber was the last thing she had ever expected to be.

She was, somehow, a heroine. A legend. A story told to children before their mothers tucked them into bed. The people of Kryptonia had been fascinated by their cursed princess, doomed to sleep for a hundred years, and had spread the story far and wide. They had added their own little touches- some claimed the rest of the castle slept along with her, others that it was guarded by impenetrable brambles- but they had lost something too. Her name, Princess Kara Zorel, had faded from the narrative. All across Kryptonia, and even beyond, she was called Sleeping Beauty.

“There’s been plenty of people who’ve come to the castle, asking if they could try to wake you,” Kal said. “I refused them all, like I knew you’d want me to, but that only seemed to encourage them. Princes, dukes, earls, barons- every kind of noble you can think of, all of them anxious to win the hand of Sleeping Beauty.”

Kara frowned. “I’m glad you didn’t let them try. I’m not that kind of princess. And even if I wanted to be, I couldn’t do it now. I’ve got a quest ahead of me.” She frowned suddenly, realizing that one of her best friends hadn’t been among the courtiers who crowded in to meet her. “Kal, where’s Alex?” The daughter of Eliza, the court physician, Alexandra Danvers had started out as Kara’s lady in waiting and quickly become as close to her as a sister.

“Er, well, Alex...I’ll explain about her in due time, Kara. But what did you mean when you said you had a quest ahead of you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to find out who cursed me. And who woke me up, if I can. Magic doesn’t do things by itself. Somebody’s got to wield it, and I want to know who it was and why they sent me to sleep for a hundred years.”

“Oh, Kara, I wish I knew that just as much as you do. I’ll send my best knights to find out, if that’s what you want. But you can’t go yourself.”

Kara’s mouth dropped open. “What? Why? You don’t need me here! The whole kingdom’s gotten along fine without me!”

“Yes, Kara, but word that you’re awake will soon spread, and the people will know we’re dealing with magic. Even though our kingdom’s steeped in sorcery, most of the commoners don’t like it. It makes them nervous. We were lucky when they romanticized your, uh, absence instead of panicking over it. I’ve no doubt they’ll rejoice when they hear you’ve woken up, but if word got out that you did it without true love’s kiss, that some other unknown force is at work, there would be chaos.”

“But they’ll find that out whether I stay or go! They know nobody kissed me!”

“No, they don’t. All those suitors that wished to wake you- I sent them away, yes, but with the promise that they could return if you ever awoke and were able to decide for yourself. I wanted you to have the choice, Kara, and now you have to choose.”

“Choose? Choose what, exactly?”

“One of your suitors. They’ll be on their way as soon as they hear what’s happened, I imagine. You’ll choose one of them, and the people will be satisfied that true love played a part, even if it wasn’t a kiss. True love is a magic everyone understands. All you have to do is get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Part the First of our story doth come to its conclusion! As but the humble bard of this tale, I crave thy thoughts, dear reader! Leave thine comments and I shall thank thee with the deepest gratitude of mine soul. And be not afeared, O champions of ships: far be it from the mere storyteller to tell thee the true love of our fair princess. In this fic thou shalt find no endgame, nor be tormented by the hideous dragon of character bashing, for thou art at liberty to ship the lovely princess with anyone thine heart mayest wish. The law of the land requireth only that you respect the ships of others, and in so doing may the kingdom be at peace. I shall return soon with Part the Second.


	2. In Which Sleeping Beauty Undertakes A Quest

It took a long, long moment before the words sank in. But when they did, they brought fury with them.

“ _Married_?” Kara shouted. “I wake up from a cursed sleep with no idea who put me into it, find out the world’s aged two decades without me and everyone I’ve ever known is completely different, and you want me to get _married_?”

“Well, not right away-“

“Not for _years_ , Kal! I told you, I’m going to find out who put that curse on me. And I can’t do that while entertaining dozens of suitors and dancing the night away at endless balls. I’m not that kind of princess. Maybe your parents didn’t tell you that about me.”

Kal hid the flash of pain in his eyes, but Kara saw it anyway. He reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. 

“Kara,” he said. “Please don’t be angry with me. I promise, I’m not doing this because I’m the type of person who thinks that a princess’ only worth is as a marriage prospect. But there’s the kingdom to be thought of. Do you know what happened when I saved Lois and killed that dragon? The people celebrated, yes, but there was also concern. Were there more dragons? Would they seek revenge? People wondered, and that wondering turned into unrest. But then we- Lois and I- announced our intentions to marry, and suddenly they had something else to think about. They forgot their fear. To them, true love was far more powerful than magic. As long as there was true love at work in the royal family, they knew the kingdom was safe.”

Kara frowned. As much as she hated to admit it, her cousin made sense. The royals of Kryptonia, who had experience with magic, knew the truth about it- some was good, some was evil, and all of it, one way or another, could be fought. The commoners had no such reassurance. To them, magic was an unknown force, frightening and all-powerful. But still, to have to marry-

An idea began to form, faintly, in the back of her mind. She drew a long breath. “I see your point, Kal. Truly, I do. It’s just...it’s a lot to take in all at once. I need some time to think.”

He smiled sympathetically, squeezing her fingers in his own. Kara felt some of her anger fade a little; she knew he was only trying, in whatever misguided way, to be a good king. The kindness in his eyes reminded her of her father, and she managed to smile back.

“Of course,” he said. “We’ve changed the castle’s layout somewhat while you were sleeping, so I’ll call one of the servants to show you to your room. And Kara?”

“Yes?”

“It’s good to have you back. You’ve been greatly missed.”

He stood up and started for the door. Kara called out after him.

“Actually, Kal, I’d like to see Alex. I think she might be able to help me...come to terms with things.”

An odd expression crossed her cousin’s face. “Oh. Well, um, Kara, that’s what I haven’t told you yet. While you were asleep- that is to say, Alex, she- well, she’s different, Kara. Very different.”

Kara laughed in spite of herself. “So are you! Believe me, nothing could surprise me today.”

He shrugged, but she could have sworn she heard him mutter “This might,” as they walked down the corridor.

* * *

It took much longer than Kara remembered to reach Alex’s room- not because the castle had changed, although it had, but because of the hundreds of servants and courtiers who stopped them to tell Kara how glad they were that she was awake. She responded politely to each well-wisher; even an atypical princess could have manners.

Finally, they reached the plain wooden door to the room that Kara remembered as belonging to her best friend, her almost-sister. Her heart was beating quickly. How much had Alex changed? Was she still the fierce, fiery rebel spirit Kara remembered?

“Lois and Jon spend time with her most days,” Kal said as he rapped on the door. “They’re likely here now.” He raised his voice. “It’s me, Alex. I’ve brought Kara with me.”

There was a beat of silence, and then the same sarcastic voice Kara remembered rang out. “My best friend wakes from a two-decade cursed sleep, and someone finally decides I might like to see her. Oh, and Your Majesty, I’d thank you to at least try to keep control of the miniature human you helped create.”

“Our relationship is still a bit...strained,” Kal whispered. Kara, however, couldn’t keep a grin from spreading over her face. From what she heard, Alex hadn’t changed a bit.

Kal swung the door open and stepped into the room, Kara at his heels. Even the room hadn’t changed much; utilitarian and unruffled in looks, it reflected its no-nonsense owner. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was the significantly large marble fountain that had been set in the center of the room. _That’s unusual. But I slept a long time. Maybe it’s the fashion now._

The woman who had been sitting in the chair next to the window stood up at their entrance, placing a hand on the slight swell of her stomach as she did so. This could be no one but Kal’s wife, Queen Lois. And Kara could see why he had married her. The lady was lovely, with a clever sparkle in her eyes and a look about her that suggested she was not quite a typical princess either.

“So you’re Kara!” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already.”

Kal suddenly darted across the room, scooping up a small boy who had somehow pulled himself up on the fountain’s edge. “Getting into mischief, are we, my little prince?” he asked. “That’s hardly the impression to make on your aunt.”

“He’s been doing that all day. Thinks trying to catch me is some kind of game.”

Kara’s words of admiration for her baby nephew died on her tongue. For the first time she realized that, although she kept hearing Alex’s voice, Alex herself was nowhere to be found.

The water in the fountain splashed, and an unusually large brown frog with a reddish tint hopped up onto the fountain’s rim. Kara blinked, wondering what on earth was going on.

“Kara,” the frog said in Alex’s voice, “don’t scream.”

Kara didn’t scream. Instead, she leaped back and said, in a slightly strangled voice, “What...is this?”

Of course she knew the answer before anyone said it. What else could this be but more magic?

“Apparently,” Alex said, “dark wizards like Maxwell Lord don’t like it when you refuse their offers of courtship. So I’m a frog until I find-“

“Don’t tell me. True love.”

“Exactly. I’ve never understood why people who meddle with magic have such a liking for true love. Surely there’s other ways a spell can be broken!”

“Well, there haven’t been for you so far,” the king interjected. Alex, though a frog, managed to give him the same nonplussed glare that she would have as a human.

“Thank you so very much, Your Majesty. I hadn’t noticed that.”

Her expression softened a little. “Lois, you know I enjoy your company, but if I could have some time alone with Kara, I’d be grateful.”

“Of course,” Kal said. “Kara’s been anxious to talk things over with you.” Shifting his son to one arm and taking his wife’s hand in the other, he quickly exited the room.

Silence fell for a moment. Kara struggled to think of what to say. So much she had missed, so much that had changed... where to begin? There were so many things she had wanted to say to Alex, but how could she say them to a frog?

Alex said it for her. “I’ve missed you.”

And just like that, the wall was broken. “I missed you too,” Kara confessed. “I...I wish I could hug you.”

“I don’t advise it,” Alex said. “I think I would squirt out of your hands.”

Kara laughed in spite of herself, sitting down on the fountain’s rim. “So, things to talk over,” Alex continued. “Let me guess. Our illustrious ruler has informed you that you must ease the people’s fear of magic by getting married. Which, naturally, you have no desire to do.”

“How did you know that?”

“Kara, we were as close as sisters. And I know the way your cousin sees things. Oh, yes, you’ll be happy to know that I haven’t aged either, not since becoming a frog.”

Kara sighed. “Kal means well. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.”

“But you don’t agree.”

“Of course not! Alex, my whole life just changed! I can’t even think about getting married right now! Besides, I still want answers. Who cursed me, and why, and who woke me.”

“Judging by the look in your eyes,” Alex replied, “I assume you have a plan.”

“I do. Kal told me the people are afraid of magic. So I’m going to show them that it can be fought. That even a princess can triumph against it. I’m going on a quest to find out who cursed me and hold them accountable. That way l’ll keep the kingdom from panic without having to get married to someone I don’t know...and don’t love.”

“And am I going with you?”

“Well, I’d planned on it,” Kara answered slowly. “You’ve always looked out for me, and you’d be better protection than half the guard. But now that you’ve been...amphibified...”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Alex answered. “I’ve got a curse to break too, whether or not I have to find my true love to do it.” She made as disgusted a face as a frog could make. “And there’s no chance I’m letting you go alone. Curses aren’t the only type of magic in this kingdom, and I’d never forgive myself if you were roasted alive by a dragon or chased off a cliff by an ogre or the like. Just bring an extra water flask for me to jump into once in a while and I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Will you travel as Sleeping Beauty, or disguise yourself?”

“It’d be safer to go in disguise, but that defeats the purpose of showing the people how magic can be fought. I’ll go as myself. Just...I’ll keep it quiet until we’ve put enough distance between us and the palace that Kal can’t send the guard after me.”

“A wise idea. How soon do we leave, Kara?”

The princess drew in a deep breath. She knew the cost of what she was about to do. She knew her cousin was only doing what he believed to be right, and knew how much he would worry about her, how much he would hate losing her again. But she also knew what she had to do.

“Tonight,” she said finally. “We leave tonight.”

* * *

If Kal’s guards had been as good at being guards as the king was at being a king, they might have noticed what happened later that night once darkness had fallen. But none of them was awake to see. 

Kara had dressed as befit a royal traveler, in tan pants, sturdy boots and a pale blue tunic with silver armor-plating on the sides and sleeves and a rich red cape. She carried Alex on her shoulder and a bag of supplies in her hand. Slipping quickly into the stables, she worked with flying fingers to saddle what Alex told her was the swiftest horse, a stunning golden mare with a creamy white mane and tail named Mayarah. She loaded her supplies into the saddlebags- enough food to last for a week, a dagger identical to the one she wore strapped to her waist, a map of Kryptonia, a few essential herbs and medicines in a leather pouch. Then, transferring Alex carefully to the saddle, she swung aboard the mare’s broad, powerful back and urged her into a swift canter, through the gate of the castle and out into the night.

And so they were off, riding on a quest for adventure, for the breaking of a curse, for whatever else might happen along their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus doth the adventure commence, beloved readers of mine tale! Ordinarily ‘twould not be till Wednesday that thou wouldst receive this second chapter, but thy humble bard is in self-quarantine and hast therefore nothing to do but write like mad. If thou dost have suggestions on which fairy tale character each of our heroes shouldst play, it would delight me to hear. As always, thy comments make my heart swoon with joy. I beseech thee all to stay inside thy castles and regularly wash thy hands, and Part the Third shall be offered to thee soon.


	3. In Which The Travelers Meet An Old Friend

It was Alex who decided their destination. In the excitement of the moment, Kara had not even considered how exactly she might find out who had been responsible for the curse. But in typical fashion, Alex had already planned ahead. "The western end of the kingdom," she'd said. "The fairies are more active there than anywhere else. And if anyone's going to know who cursed you, it's your fairy godmother." It was a well-known fact that every Kryptonian royal had a fairy godmother; most royals never met theirs, but that only made Kara more determined to find hers.

For the first few days the two of them kept off the main roads, doing their best to avoid other travelers. Eventually Kara intended for her people to learn who she was and what quest she was on. But she had no idea whether or not her cousin might ride after her, and until she had put enough distance between herself and him, she knew it was better to lie low.

Those first few days of travel were blissful. The two of them quickly fell into a regular pattern. They were up every morning at dawn, had a quick, light breakfast, and set off again. Sometimes they sang as they rode, or talked about all the things that had taken place during Kara's absence, or simply rode in companionable silence. When dusk fell they would veer off the beaten path and find a place to camp, eat a hot supper, and let the horse graze as they slept. It was an exciting, adventurous life, and Kara enjoyed every minute of it.

But the week's worth of supplies she'd brought along dwindled faster than expected. Alex, it turned out, was only a frog on the outside, and was therefore unable to eat insects. (Kara didn't exactly blame her).

"Let me see that map," Alex said finally, as they sat beside the fire on the fifth night. Kara spread the map out on the ground, and Alex hopped over it, scrutinizing the path ahead of them.

"We'll be passing a little town tomorrow," she said finally. "I doubt anyone would recognize you, dressed like a traveler as you are. We could stock up on supplies, maybe find a tavern and have a meal you didn't cook for a change."

"What's wrong with my cooking?"

"Nothing. But I'd still enjoy something that isn't traveler's fare. And I wouldn't say no to a drink. You did bring coin along, didn't you?"

"Of course I did! What do you think I am, unprepared?"

"Being that you woke up from a curse and set off on this quest not twenty-four hours later, I wondered." The side of Alex's mouth curved up in the half-smile that let Kara know she was joking. She huffed in mock offense before letting her own smile spread across her face.

"Alright, then," she said. "But I hope no one recognizes me, or this adventure might end much quicker than I want it to."

"You really think Kal might ride after us?"

"I don't know. I know he'll be worried. And this is the king who risked life and limb to kill a dragon and save a girl he didn't even know. That's the thing about him, Alex. If he thinks something's the right thing to do, there's nothing that will stop him from doing it. And in this case, he might decide that the right thing is to stop me."

"I always thought he was a bit too rigid like that," Alex commented. "But no matter. We'll just have to make sure no one finds out who you are."

"Or that I'm traveling with a talking frog?"

"We should probably keep that to ourselves, too."

* * *

They reached the little town Alex had mentioned a few hours past noon. Thankfully, the streets were mostly quiet, and they were able to restock their supplies without crossing paths with too many townspeople. The ones they did run into were mostly absorbed in their own affairs, friendly but not particularly interested in the two travelers. With her identity safe, and Alex on her shoulder hidden securely under her cloak, Kara was able to enjoy the venture into town, haggling and bargaining with the shopkeepers just as the peasants did.

"This is fun," she said once they reached an alleyway where she couldn't be spotted talking to seemingly no one. "I like not having to live as a royal. If we weren't doing all this to get answers about a potentially deadly curse that sent me to sleep for almost thirty years, it would be perfect."

"Just keep your wits about you," Alex advised. "Whoever cursed you is a magic-user, and magic-users generally know things they're not supposed to know. They might have already figured out that you're looking for them."

Kara nodded, keeping a sharp eye on the passersby as they walked through the village. Most of the afternoon had passed by now, and the muted light of pre-dusk was spreading across the town when Kara finally spotted a tavern.

"The Black Fox," she read from the sign above the door. "Well, I guess this is as good a place as any." She pushed the door open, pausing a moment to make sure Alex was well hidden under the cloak.

The tavern was just what Kara had always imagined a tavern would be- lit mainly by torchlight, with a large, inviting fire crackling in the hearth to ward off the chill of the early spring evening. Groups of simply dressed villagers, mostly men but a few women, sat in groups around the tables, laughing and talking, drinking and playing dice. Kara sat down at a table in the corner, where the torchlight didn't quite reach and Alex could sit on the table without being spotted. A serving girl came by to ask her order, acting only mildly surprised at the sight of a young woman traveling alone. She gave no indication, however, that she recognized the legendary Sleeping Beauty, and Kara finally allowed herself to relax, ordering a large mug of ale and a plate of beef and potatoes. The hot meal was a welcome treat, and Alex wasted no time taking care of the saucer of ale Kara poured out for her.

Suddenly, as Kara debated whether or not to order a slice of apple cake, she saw Alex's eyes widen. "What's the matter?" she whispered. "Did someone recognize me?"

"No," said Alex. "I recognized someone else. Over at the table by the fire, playing dice with those farmers. Don't look as if you're looking, Kara."

As casually as she could, Kara turned her head. Her brow furrowed as she tried to pick out the man Alex had spotted; as far as she could tell, they were all dressed like farmers. Suddenly she recognized one of them, a tall, dark-skinned man with a kind but care-lined face. She had seen him many times before the curse.

"That's J'onn J'onzz!" she whispered. "Oh, Alex, you had me worried it was someone dangerous. Do you think I should go say hello?"

Alex never got the chance to answer. J'onn glanced in their direction, and his eyes went wide for a single moment before he rearranged his expression into neutrality. Obviously he knew exactly who Kara was. Bidding a quick goodbye to the men he'd been playing dice with, he approached their table and took a seat across from Kara.

"Nice to see you again, J'onn," Alex said.

"Alex. No true love yet, I see." He turned his attention to Kara, the shock of seeing her still evident on his face. "Sleeping Beauty- princess- Kara, what on earth are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, J'onn," Kara replied. "What's my cousin's captain of the guard doing away from the palace?"

J'onn raised an eyebrow. " _Ex_ \- captain of the guard. The king and I had a falling out a while back." Seeing Kara's alarmed expression, he hastily amended the sentence. "He didn't dismiss me. He's not that way. I left of my own accord and I've lived here ever since. And now that I've explained that, princess, do you mind telling me how exactly you're awake seventy-six years early? If somebody kissed you-"

"Nobody kissed me. That's why we're out here." Quickly, Kara explained the nature of their quest, with Alex interjecting every so often.

"I see," J'onn said slowly, once they'd finished. "And what does the king think of this?"

"I didn't exactly...ask him?" Kara blushed, but she thought she saw the faintest hint of a smile on J'onn's face.

"So, going rogue, are we? I'd have expected that from Alex. Not so much from you, Kara. You truly have no idea who's behind the curse?"

"I wasn't in the habit of making enemies," Kara said.

"You're a princess. Princesses always have enemies."

"Well, you were the captain, J'onn," Alex put in. "You know the threats to the kingdom. Which of our rivals might have done this?"

"That's a hard question, Alex. The trouble is, Kryptonia's been a peaceful kingdom for centuries now. The only kingdoms that truly hate us are the Snow Queen's domain to the east, and the Luthor kingdom to the west."

Kara blinked. "Snow Queen?"

"It's a long story," Alex answered. "I'll fill you in later."

"It wouldn't have been her, though," J'onn said. "She's eradicated all magic but her own within her borders, and she never leaves her kingdom."

"The Luthors, then?"

"I doubt it. They do hate us enough to try something like a curse, but if they were to blame they would have attacked Kal, not Kara. Kal was the heir to the throne, the logical target. None of this makes any sense."

"So someone specifically targeted me," Kara said. "Even though I can't think of anyone who would have wanted me cursed."

"We'll stick with our plan, then," Alex said. "Finding your fairy godmother."

J'onn nodded. "A good plan. I'm assuming it was your idea, Alex. Tell me, do you have a plan for passing the Luthor borders undetected?"

Alex looked as taken aback as a frog could be. "Well, we'll take an alternate route, of course. No sense taking an unnecessary risk."

"You're aware that any alternate routes will add at least a week to your journey? And that your best hope of actually finding a fairy will be in early summer?"

Alex fidgeted. "I knew about the routes, but the fairies..."

"They don't appear past Midsummer's Day. It's an unspoken rule." J'onn stood up, placing a handful of coins on the table. "Don't go anywhere, you two."

"Where are you going?" Kara asked.

"Home, to get my horse. And my sword."

"You're...you're coming with us?" Alex looked both excited and surprised by the idea. J'onn shrugged, a smile playing over his face.

"I might as well. There's nothing for me in this village. Alex, while you're a wonderful swordswoman and I know you'd protect Kara at any cost, there's not much you can do as a frog. Kara, you're Sleeping Beauty. Once the word gets out about who you are and why you're out here, you'll need some protection if you're going to make it to the end of this quest. And neither of you has been far from the palace before. I, on the other hand, have seen the whole kingdom and beyond. I can help make sure you both get back to the palace alive."

"J'onn, that's a wonderful idea! We'd love to have you!" Kara squealed.

"It's settled, then. Meet me outside in a half-hour, and we'll be off."

"And you thought your days of riding off on half-baked adventures were over," Alex teased.

"That I did. I should have known better. As long as I've got the pair of you to look after, there will always be more adventures ahead." J'onn leaned down, seizing the mug of ale and draining the last of it in one swift gulp. "And I'll drink to that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, O beloved readers, J’onn doth make his entrance. He is in fact the first of our characters to play a part in a genderbent fairy tale, though which tale it may be, and which role he plays, shalt not be revealed for some time. Likewise the identity of the Snow Queen- which of our characters couldst possibly take on such a role? Let me know thy thoughts, readers- thy bard remaineth in quarantine and is beginning to go mad. I wouldst welcome thy comments to alleviate mine boredom, and hope that my little tale hath helped to alleviate thine boredom as well. I shall return in a short time with Part the Fourth.


	4. In Which Many Things Are Learned About The King

Having J'onn along on the quest made the whole adventure even more enjoyable. The former captain of the guard shared the knowledge of his many travels freely, from which routes to take to which roadside berries they could eat; even Alex, who was also knowledgeable when it came to woodcraft, learned a few things from him. He was skilled with a longbow as well as a sword, it turned out, and was sometimes able to provide some fresh meat to make their travelers' diet a bit more exciting. (Kara, he claimed, ate with a heartier appetite than any knight he'd ever seen, which was probably true. Kara was not an ordinary princess and therefore did not have the delicate, birdlike appetite of one. Her appetite was closer to a half-starved wolf's).

J'onn was also able to tell Kara more about what had gone on during her twenty-four years. Alex had done her best, but it was difficult to know everything going on in the world when you were a frog who couldn't go far from a fountain. Thanks to J'onn, Kara learned much more about the state of the kingdom. Kal, it seemed, was a capable king who had led Kryptonia into an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity.

"Tell me something, J'onn," Kara said on their seventh day of travel, as they trotted their horses down a winding, oak-shaded trail. "If you don't mind, that is. If my cousin is such a wonderful ruler, why aren't you still serving under him? What happened?"

The former captain sighed, a strange, distant smile playing over his features. "The trouble with your cousin, princess," he said, "is this. He's a good man who believes most of the world is just as noble as he is. That's where we differed, because I've seen enough of the world to know it isn't like that. The rift between us started with the Luthors."

"What happened between us and them, anyway?" Kara asked. "I know they've always hated us, but you and Alex talk like they're far more hostile now."

"That's because they are," Alex said. "King Lionel died not long after Kal took the throne. His wife took over after that."

"Ugh. Lillian." Kara shuddered. "I never liked her."

"Neither did her people. She was a tyrant. They forced her to abdicate after a month in favor of her son."

"And that was where the trouble started with me and Kal," J'onn said. "He never liked Prince Lex, but he hoped he'd be a better ruler than his parents and extended the hand of friendship. I warned him not to do it, told him never to trust a Luthor. They hated us, betrayed us countless times...there was no reason to believe Lex would be different. But Kal believed it anyway, refusing to judge the new king on his parents' legacy."

"Lex, however, is just like his parents," Alex spat. "A cold, slimy, poisonous snake. We found that out the hard way when he tried to assassinate your cousin."

"That's when Kal finally closed things off with the Luthors and their kingdom," J'onn said. "Tensions have run high between our nations ever since. But that wasn't the end of our king's...idealism. It happened again with the dragon."

"The one he rescued Lois from?"

"Exactly. Now don't get me wrong, Queen Lois is a lovely woman and I don't blame the king for saving her. But I was with your cousin when he happened on that dragon, and I knew something wasn't right. Dragons aren't your everyday ogre or griffin. They've got more magic in them than most animals do, so like magic, somebody's got to control them to make them dangerous. They don't attack otherwise."

"How do you control a dragon?"

"Nobody knows," Alex said. "Except the fairies. And probably the Luthors. Which is a good thing, because I know what that look on your face means, Kara, and I also know that if we did know how to control a dragon you'd want to try it."

"Over my dead body," J'onn said. Kara extended her lower lip in a mock pout, all three of them smiling.

"Anyway," J'onn went on, "I warned your cousin that the dragon was probably meant as a trap. Kryptonia had just lost their old king; they couldn't lose their new one. But once he's convinced something is the right thing to do-"

"Nothing can stop him," Kara finished. "Believe me, I learned that before I left."

"I wasn't suggesting he abandon Lois to the dragon," J'onn said. "In fact, I suggested that, as the more experienced warrior, I should hold the beast off while he rode back to the castle for the guardsmen. The sentence wasn't even out of my mouth before he was charging in with his sword drawn-"

"Like an idiot," Alex muttered.

"Well, he was a successful idiot," J'onn said. "He won the fight, and the people loved him for it. He's been like a saint to them ever since. But he and I found ourselves butting heads more often than not after that. When I realized that nothing would change his mind, I left. And ever since then I've been living a quiet life in that poor provincial town, free of dangerous adventures and risky quests until the pair of you showed up." He smiled teasingly as he said the last sentence.

"Thankfully," Alex said, "your cousin's changed quite a bit since then. He's far less likely to go running heedlessly into some imminent disaster now that he's got his son to think of, and the Queen's the one person who's been able to talk a little sense into him."

"So the only thing he remains unbearably stubborn about is his decision that I have to get married," Kara said. "Wonderful. Well, I hope he'll change his mind about that too, once I find whoever it is who put that curse on me and make them answer for their crimes. Riding off on this quest is the right thing to do, and for once I'm just as dedicated to doing the right thing as my well-intentioned but misguided cousin."

* * *

Far away, back at the palace, the king, with no idea that he was the subject of the travelers' discussion, dropped his head into his hands with a sigh. Queen Lois sat down beside him, laying a gentle hand on her husband's shoulder.

"Kal," she said softly, "you've done all you can. You've been worrying yourself sick all week. Kara's a strong, capable girl. She knew what she was doing and she can handle herself out there. She must have a plan. And she's not alone. Alexandra is with her."

"Which would reassure me, darling, if Alexandra were not currently a five-inch frog." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, staring off into the distance. "She's the only family I still have, Lois, besides you and Jon. If anything happens to her out there..."

He turned back to the queen suddenly, his blue eyes remorseful. "I shouldn't have been so hard on her. I shouldn't have put so much pressure on her about the marriage, but the kingdom...the story is spreading that she's awake. Right now there's celebration, but when that wears off, and the questions come, they'll want a kiss. A marriage. Something to prove that the magic that woke her was benevolent."

"But we don't know that it was. We don't know what cursed her, much less how she woke."

"And that's the trouble. Whoever's behind this, they're still out there. They'll know, now that she is awake, that she'll be looking for answers. She's in danger, Lois. And no one knows how much. I can't just sit here and hope she'll be alright. I have to make sure of it. I have to keep her safe."

"You're doing as much as you can do, my love. You've already sent half a squadron of your best knights to find her. Either they'll bring her back, or, if her stubbornness proves to be too much for them- which I expect it will be- they'll escort her, make sure she comes to no harm. You've done your best."

"I should go myself. She's family. It's the right thing to do. And I would go, too, if it weren't for..." He trailed off, his gaze trailing down to the bulge of his wife's stomach.

"You're right to stay, Kal. And not just for the baby. You're the king. You can't just go riding off on wild adventures and leave the kingdom in someone else's hands. Your hands are the safest."

"I know, I know. But if anything happens, I'll never forgive myself."

"Nothing will happen, darling. Trust Captain Olsen. He's been your best friend since you both were boys. He can handle this. He rescued my sister from that tower."

"I have a strong suspicion Lucy did most of the rescuing herself, but you're right. I have faith in James, and there's no one else I'd rather leave my cousin's fate to."

"And if Kara does not wish to return to the palace, you can tell the people she has knights with her to protect against the magic. Either way, the kingdom's panic will be eased, and Kara will be fine. We can worry about a wedding later."

"What would I do without you?" the king said fondly, taking the Queen's soft, slender hand in his own larger one. Lois smirked.

"You'd get yourself killed running in to save some poor unfortunate soul. Knowing you, if I wasn't here, you'd have taken on the Luthor armies, challenged Lex to single combat, plunged into the middle of a griffin flock, fought a dragon by yourself-"

"I _did_ fight a dragon by myself."

"See? This is why you need me."

Kal brushed a soft kiss against her forehead. "I certainly do. And you're right, dearest. I've nothing to worry about. If anyone can keep Kara out of trouble, James can."

The Queen leaned into her husband's embrace, but her eyes were troubled. Softly, under her breath so the king could not hear, she whispered, "I only hope we can keep the kingdom out of trouble, without its best soldiers here to protect it."

* * *

All across the towns and villages of Kryptonia, following the route the princess had taken in secret not very many nights before, the peasants turned out of their houses to stare in awe as a cavalcade of knights went sweeping past. They were a splendid sight, all of them dressed in shining armor, riding milk-white steeds that galloped like the wind. They carried gleaming swords with the sharpest, strongest blades, and the banners of the kingdom streamed above them. In some towns, where the princess was suspected of having stopped, the knights stopped too, and their leader proclaimed a message in his deep, booming voice. The people crowded around to listen to his announcement, ripples of excitement spreading through the crowd.

The secret nature of Kara's adventure was no more. In no time at all the word flew through the whole of Kryptonia. Sleeping Beauty, their beloved princess, was not only awake, she was riding on a quest to find out who had cursed her and bring them to justice. In some towns the villagers hoped the princess would stop by; in one, a poor provincial town five days from the palace, a tavern serving girl suddenly remembered the strange young woman who had come in for a meal and left, accompanied by a grumpy former soldier and a frog. The kingdom's pride and hope suddenly rested on the shoulders of Sleeping Beauty, and many a wish was breathed that she might succeed.

Of course Kara herself didn't know this. Kara had no idea that a cavalcade of knights was in pursuit of her, or that her quest was now common knowledge. As far as she knew, the haste they were making was only so that they could reach the fairies by Midsummer.

But she would soon learn that even she, with her head start and boundless energy, could not travel faster than rumor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, dearest readers, we learn that the king hath indeed sent riders after his cousin. Will they catch up to the princess? Will it be the end of the quest? Of course not, we have twenty-six more chapters. I shall return posthaste with the fifth. For those who caught the reference to J’onn’s fairy tale and now know who he is, I applaud thy sharp eyes.


	5. In Which Some People Are Pleasant And Others Are Not

The land of Kryptonia grew more beautiful the deeper into it they went. The thick trees gave way to vast green meadows dotted with clover, buttercups and daisies. Little songbirds darted overhead, singing merrily, and every so often a deer would dash by.

On the ninth bright morning, as the three of them discussed what else J’onn knew about the fairies, Kara felt Mayarah stumble suddenly beneath her. She caught frantically at the saddle, and then more frantically at Alex, who had started to slip. As soon as she had the mare back under control she jumped down to the ground, moving Alex safely to her shoulder. “What’s the matter, girl?”

J'onn, pulling his own horse to a stop and dismounting swiftly, ran a hand down Mayarah's leg and lifted the hoof she had stumbled over. "She's thrown a shoe," he said. "We'll have to get that fixed if we hope to go much further. Hand me that map in your saddlebag, princess."

Kara handed over the wrinkled parchment, and J'onn ran his finger over it. "We're in luck," he said. "There's a village not far from here. It's small, but it should have a blacksmith all the same. And it'll take us out of our way, but there's no help for that. You'll have to lead the horse, Kara."

Kara didn't mind walking for a while, enjoying the beautiful day. The village J'onn had mentioned was hardly more than two miles away, and they reached it an hour or two before noon.

It was small, as J'onn had said, but remarkably charming, located at the foot of a sloping green hill. On the crest of the hill stood a large, impressive manor house of pale gray stone, with elegant turrets and towers. "This is lovely!" Kara exclaimed.

"A bit too high and mighty for me," Alex said. "That manor looks more like a palace than your cousin's _actual_ palace does."

"She's right," J'onn said. "These people are obviously nobility, Kara, which means it's likely they'll recognize you. I wouldn't count on anonymity in this place."

"So what should I do?"

"Smile charmingly. And keep this in your boot-" J'onn tossed a small dagger in Kara's direction- "just in case your unknown enemy shows up."

It didn't take long for J'onn's prediction to come true. As they made their way through the village, Kara noticed people beginning to stare, glancing casually at her and then glancing back with wide eyes. Suddenly self-conscious, she felt heat rise in her cheeks and managed a small smile, waving every so often. Gasps and whispers followed them, and the name "Sleeping Beauty" passed from person to person with mounting excitement.

"This isn't good," J'onn whispered out of the side of his mouth. "Word will spread, and it could reach someone we don't want it to."

"Let's just find the blacksmith and get out of here," Kara said. "I hate people making a fuss over me."

"We're in luck," Alex said. "Look up ahead." Sure enough, a wooden sign in the shape of an anvil swung from an open shed up ahead.

"Wonderful," J'onn said. "Kara, perhaps you should wait outside. Most people get nervous when they have to do something for royalty, even if it's something they make their living doing. And most people get even more nervous if that royalty is accompanied by a talking frog."

He took Mayarah's lead rope from Kara, striding off towards the blacksmith's shop. Kara spotted a stone bench and made her way over to it, tucking Alex safely out of sight. No one approached her; obviously they knew who she was and were too intimidated to speak with her. Kara almost wished someone would. J'onn was gone far longer than he should have been, and she couldn't talk to Alex without raising suspicion.

By the time J'onn had been gone for two and a half hours, Kara was getting both anxious and bored. But just as she made up her mind to go and find him, she spotted him coming back down the street, both horses in tow.

"The fellow works well, and he works cheaply," he said, "but he certainly doesn't work _fast_. There's no point going any further today, not when it's so late. We'd be better off finding an inn to spend the night and leaving in the morning."

"Only one problem with that," Alex said. "I haven't seen a single inn. A town this small probably doesn't need one."

"We'll head for the town square, then," J'onn said, "and find someone to ask for directions. There's got to be some sort of lodging in this place."

"I wish everyone would stop staring," Kara said. "I liked the last village much better, when nobody knew who I was."

"It was definitely safer," Alex agreed. They reached the town square without further comment, and J'onn glanced around with narrowed eyes, obviously trying to decide whom to approach. Kara looked over the scattered townspeople herself, wishing she might see a friendly face instead of an awestruck one. There weren't many people around; a frazzled merchant-woman barked orders at the three or four rambunctious children playing around her, an old man shepherded a handful of goats through the street, and a young man in a worn, ragged shirt was pulling a bucket from the stone well that stood in the center of the square.

"Pulling" was actually not the right word. He was having quite a bit of trouble, all but wrestling with the bucket. Finally J'onn stepped forward, taking the rope. "Let me give you a hand with that."

"Oh, thank goodness. I mean, uh, I can handle it, sir. Easily. Absolutely."

Kara put a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. She liked this stranger, whoever he was. He was small, almost half a head shorter than J'onn, with messy dark brown curls, green eyes and a bright, cheerful grin.

A grin that remained on his face until he turned around and saw her. And then his eyes almost popped out of his head.

"But you're the...Sleeping Beauty...you're..." He dropped swiftly to one knee. "Your Highness, I..."

"Oh, no, please don't do that," Kara said. "I'm not that type of princess. In fact, forget I am one." She stepped forward and thrust out her hand. "Call me Kara. And you are?"

He swallowed hard, offering a tentative smile. "Winslow. Uh, Winn. Just Winn."

"Well, Just Winn," J'onn said, "would there be anywhere in this village of yours where three travelers might spend the night? An inn or a tavern, perhaps?"

"Not that I know of. We don't get a lot of travelers around here. But, Your Highness-"

"Kara."

"Right. Sorry. Anyway, if you don't mind my saying so, you'd find quite a welcome up at the manor. They'd love a royal visitor." He frowned suddenly. "Wait, did you say there were three of you?"

From Kara's shoulder, Alex sighed. "Let's get this over with," she said, hopping down to the ground. "I'm the third one. Kara's best friend, cursed by a dark wizard. Don't scream."

Winn didn't scream, but he did look for a moment as if he was about to faint. Alex didn't give him the chance, continuing right on with the conversation as if everything was perfectly normal.

"So," she said, "how exactly do you know so much about the manor?"

"My family lives there."

Even in her amphibified state, Alex looked skeptical, glancing up and down at Winn's threadbare clothes. " _You_ live up at the manor?"

Winn's face reddened. "Yes. I...well, it's complicated. I can take you there if you like, Your High- ah, Kara. But you might want to stay out of sight if you can, Lady Frog. My family doesn't really like frogs. Or mice, or spiders, or-"

"I get the idea. And don't call me Lady Frog. My name's Alex."

"Of course, Lady Frog. I mean, Alex."

Alex looked back at Kara, rolling her eyes, and Kara had to swallow her giggles. She didn't quite manage it.

* * *

The manor, which had looked imposing from the entrance of the village, looked even more grandiose up close. Kara felt a little bit intimidated, staring up at the high, spiraling turrets and gleaming windows. "You're sure your family won't mind our staying here?"

"They won't mind at all. In fact, they'll love it. Trust me, all they talk about is making their noble friends jealous, and this is certainly one way to do it."

"Oh." Kara's nose wrinkled. She'd met people like that at court, and didn't exactly like them. "You don't seem like that at all."

"Oh, nonononono. I'm not. I could care less about that kind of thing. To tell you the truth, they're actually my stepfamily. My stepmother, Jacqueline, and my stepsisters, Siobhan and Lyra. I'm not entirely sure they're really her daughters, actually, I've never really asked how they're related. _If_ they're related. It's very unclear."

He led them up the perfectly raked gravel walk that led to the door, hesitating just a moment before he opened it. "They might be a bit...abrasive...before they realize who you are," he whispered. Raising his voice, he called out, "I'm back!"

"And you certainly took your time about it!" a woman's cold voice shouted. "You've been gone almost an hour, you good-for-nothing little-"

"Uh, stepmother, we have guests," Winn interrupted, sending an apologetic smile in Kara's direction. Brisk footsteps sounded on the upper floor, and a tall, rather plain woman with an elaborate blond updo swept imperiously down the stairs.

"What do you mean we have- oh, my!" Her tone changed suddenly, becoming saccharinely sweet as she made a deep curtsy. "Forgive me, Your Highness, I had absolutely no idea!"

Kara, who had already decided that she despised this woman, darted a helpless glance at J'onn, who stepped in effortlessly."Your stepson was kind enough to offer us lodging for the night. If that's all right with you, Lady...?"

"Jacqueline, Lady Jacqueline. And of course, of course, it'd be an honor to have the princess stay with us! Think nothing of it!" She waved a dismissive hand in Winn's direction as if she'd only just remembered he was there. "Make yourself scarce, Winslow. I'm sure you can find something useful to do."

Kara fought to keep a smile on her face, wondering if the daughters were just as insufferable as this woman. As if to answer her unspoken question, a door banged open upstairs, and a shrill, banshee-like voice shrieked, "Winn, get up here this minute! This minute, do you hear!"

Winn flinched. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" He all but ran from the room, and Kara didn't blame him. _I guess that settles that. All three of them are horrible._

"If you'll give me just a minute," Jacqueline said, sugary sweet again, "I'll just step into the kitchen and tell the cook to prepare something fit for a princess. Make yourself comfortable, Your Highness, please." She curtsied again and hurried out, leaving them alone in the vast marble entryway.

There was a moment of silence. "Well," J'onn said slowly, "he seems a nice enough lad."

"I don't know," Alex said. "He seems a little dim to me. Awkward, too. And nervous. He reminds me of a rabbit the way he lets them push him around like that."

"It's not his fault," Kara said. "I feel sorry for him. I didn't know our kingdom had such terrible people in it!"

"Every kingdom has terrible people," J'onn said. "These won't be the last ones you meet on this quest, princess."

* * *

Siobhan and Lyra, it turned out, were even worse than Jacqueline. The two were complete opposites of each other. Lyra was blond and blue-eyed while Siobhan's features were dark, though both presented themselves in absurdly garish gowns. Dinner was a strained and awkward affair; the meal was both rich and flavorless, and keeping the conversation civil proved a challenge. Siobhan apparently harbored a dislike for the royal family and spent most of the meal directing thinly-veiled insults at Kara. Jacqueline couldn't talk of anything but her own achievements, her friends, her fashionable parties. And Lyra seemed to fly into a fury over nothing, once slamming a glass down with such force that it shattered. Kara didn't see much of Winn, who was more or less banished to the kitchen as soon as the meal was served, secretly taking Alex with him to make sure she, too, got enough to eat. From the way the three women talked to him, it was clear Winn was more of a servant than a member of the family, although Kara had no idea why that was the case.

Despite their fawning over her, Kara could tell this family was cold and callous and cruel, and found herself growing more and more uncomfortable. She left most of the talking to J'onn, wishing Alex were here and in her human form. If she hadn't been a frog, her almost-sister wouldn't have hesitated to set these monsters straight. When at last the meal was over and she was left alone in a far too opulent guest room, she lay awake for a while, unable to sleep.

Even before the curse had sent her to sleep, she knew, as a princess, that she had lived a sheltered life. The Kryptonia she had experienced had been magical, almost a fairy tale. Somehow she had believed that, in a kingdom ruled by such kind and good-hearted monarchs as her family, evil would be unable to enter. Tonight she had had her first glimpse of something different, the first sign that things were not as idyllic as she thought.

And she wasn't sure she wanted to know how much worse things might get before her quest was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So enters Winn-derella (apologies, dear readers, I could not resist the pun). The backstory of how our favorite little hobbit found himself in this predicament shall be the next chapter’s subject, because I, your humble storyteller, made this chapter much too long and had to divide it in two. For those who do not remember who Jacqueline is, do not fret- she hath appeared in but one episode, 3x14, as the insane lady who was the Toyman’s apprentice, but she was the best option for our evil stepmother. And for those who art confused over the choice of Lyra for one of the stepsisters-
> 
> Thy bard does not usually speak out about ships, whether for or against them. But thy bard does not like ships that include yelling and smashing things because that is unhealthy. Hence Lyra’s role in this story.


	6. In Which Another Quest Begins

Whether it was the sheer awfulness of her hosts, or the absurdly stiff lace lining her pillowcase and jabbing into her neck, Kara didn't sleep well that night. She was wide awake well before the sun rose, and lay still for a while, mind swirling with thoughts about everything she had witnessed the previous day.

Winn had smuggled Alex in before she went to bed, and finally Kara stood up, dressed quickly, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and bent over the saucer of water that Alex slept in. "Alex," she whispered. "Are you awake?"

Alex groaned, opening one extremely grumpy eye. "I am now."

"I can't sleep."

"I gathered that."

"Will you go downstairs with me? I just want to look around a little."

Alex drew a long sigh. "Well," she said finally, "if you're so bent on exploring, we might as well do it before those three harpies wake up."

"Thank you!" Kara carefully transferred the still-sleepy Alex to her shoulder and slipped soundlessly out of the room, padding down the hall.

The house was quiet, and the gray pre-dawn shadows made it look sinister somehow. The entire place reflected the gaudy tastes of its owners, splashed with too much velvet and gold and wood polished to a dangerous smoothness. If she'd been in any other manor, Kara would have slid down the banister. As it was, she took the stairs. She could hear noises coming from the lower floor even before she reached it- banging, clattering, and a muffled "Ouch!"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Three guesses who else is up," she muttered.

"Winn?" Kara called out, taking the last few steps three at a time and hurrying around the corner. As she'd suspected, Winn was there, stirring up the coals in the fireplace. He jumped at the sound of her voice, but then his face relaxed into its usual grin.

"Princess! I mean, Kara. I didn't think you'd be up this early. And good morning to you too, Lady Frog."

Alex growled, pitching her voice low so that only Kara could hear it. "If he calls me that one more time-"

"Was there something you needed?" Winn asked, completely oblivious to the conversation. Kara shook her head.

"Oh no, I just couldn't sleep and wanted to do some exploring. Um, you've got a little-" She gestured to a streak of soot on his cheek. He rubbed at it, only succeeding in making the problem significantly worse. Alex slapped a hand to the frog equivalent of her forehead; Kara decided to let it go.

"You don't seem at all like your family," she said, sitting down on the staircase and gesturing for him to join her. "It's horrible, the way they treat you. I was wondering- I hope this doesn't sound rude- why you don't just leave. I mean, are you under some curse or something that makes you obey them?"

"Curse? No, I'm not cursed."

"So he's just naturally spineless," Alex whispered in Kara's ear. "Wonderful."

"But I couldn't leave them," Winn continued. "They have no idea how to take care of themselves. They need me."

"They're _using_ you," Kara corrected, raising an eyebrow. "You're a servant in your own house. How did it...how did it get like this?"

Winn's mouth curved up in a sad smile. "It started with my father, really. He wasn't a good man. It was alright, for awhile, as long as my mother was there. But she left when I was eleven, and then my father married Jacqueline, and..." He drew a long sigh. "Jacqueline doted on my father. And because I’m nothing like him- because I don’t _want_ to be- she hated me. She taught my stepsisters to feel the same way, so when my father died...it was easier to just give in to what they wanted, little by little, until eventually...it was like this. It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

They sat in silence for a moment, while Kara searched for something to say. She found it. “You could come with us.”

Alex choked.

Winn’s eyes went wide. “What? Oh, no. I couldn’t do that. Me, traveling with royalty? I’m a commoner!”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“My stepmother would kill me. I’m only mostly exaggerating. And then Siobhan and Lyra would start in, and-“

“You don’t need their permission. You could just go. They wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. And I’m sure J’onn wouldn’t mind a bit.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Alex warned. Kara, pointedly ignoring her, put a hand on Winn’s shoulder.

“Just think about it. We’d love to have you. And whether they’re your family or not, what they’re doing isn’t right. You deserve more than this.”

“I’d- I’d love to, Kara. Really I would. But I-“

A sudden pounding on the manor’s main door interrupted his words. As did a deep voice. “We are knights of His Majesty on urgent royal business. Open in the name of the king!”

Kara’s heart, for one second, stopped beating. “My cousin’s guard,” she whispered. “They’ve come after me.”

Winn gaped at her. “Wait, the king doesn’t know you’re here?”

“Not exactly?”

“Not exactly? You’re a fugitive from the royal guard and we sheltered you? Oh, this...this is not good. This is treason! We’ll all end up in prison!” He ran a frantic hand through his already-messy hair, eyes wide and wild.

“Calm down. I’m still the princess. No matter what my cousin says, these knights won’t be arresting anybody. And they certainly won’t be dragging me back to the palace to get married.”

“We should probably get upstairs before they kick the door in,” Alex advised, and Kara bolted back up to the main floor with Winn on her heels. They weren’t the only ones awakened by the commotion; J’onn came running into the hall, sword drawn, and Jacqueline dashed down the stairs with Siobhan and Lyra close behind, all three of them far less put together than they’d been last night. “What on earth is going on?” Jacqueline shouted irritably. No one bothered to answer her; instead, J’onn turned to Kara.

“It appears, Your Royal Highness,” he said, “that your cousin has caught up with us.”

Siobhan shrieked. “The king’s outside? But I can’t be seen by royalty! Look at the state of my hair!”

Once again completely ignoring her, J’onn sheathed his sword and pulled the door open. Half a dozen knights, resplendent in full armor, charged into the room, headed by a tall, broad-shouldered man with rich dark skin and intense eyes.

“Captain Olsen,” J’onn greeted him calmly. “Saved any more maidens from towers lately?”

“Lucy’s the only one so far, and she did most of her own saving. I didn’t expect to find you here, J’onn J’onzz.”

“Nor I you. Is the king with you?”

“He decided not to leave the queen before the baby arrives.”

“For once I fully support his decision,” J’onn observed mildly. Lady Jacqueline, pasting her sweetest smile on her face, pushed past him. 

“An honor, it’s an honor, Captain. Whatever your mission, my daughters and I will do whatever we can to assist. Could I offer you and your knights some refreshment? A cup of tea, perhaps?”

“Thank you, madam, but we must decline. We’re here on an urgent matter-“

“Oh, but surely you’re tired from your journey! I must insist!”

Kara took advantage of the captain’s momentary distraction to search her mind desperately for an idea. Despite her brave words to Winn, she knew Captain Olsen and his knights were acting on the king’s authority. Technically, they could force her to return to the palace whether she wanted to or not. _Back to my true love and a marriage I don't want._

Suddenly, from the place in her mind that housed all the wild, nonsensical plans no one else would ever think of, she found her idea. She had no way of knowing if it would even work, but it was her only chance. _They want me to find true love? I’ll pretend I’m out here doing just that._

“Winn,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth, “I need your shoe.”

“My shoe? Why do you need my-“

“Just hand it over!”

Clearly baffled, Winn succeeded in pulling off his very battered leather shoe, handing it to Kara just as the captain finally finished fending off Lady Jacqueline’s overwrought pleasantries. “Actually, madam, I’m here to speak with the princess and I really can’t wait.” He scanned the hall, locking eyes with Kara. Relief covered his face.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright. Princess, we’ve been combing the kingdom for you. Your cousin’s worried sick!”

“I didn’t vanish, Captain Olsen,” Kara said. “I embarked on a quest. And I don’t blame Kal for being concerned about me. He needs me to get married, after all, before the whole kingdom spirals into panic.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. “Yes. He...does.”

“Naturally,” Kara said. “He probably told you I was opposed to the idea. Well, I was, at first. I know the kind of suitors that came looking to wake me. All they wanted was to do the impossible to make themselves look better. Of course I couldn’t marry _them_. So I went on a quest, for the good of the kingdom, to find my _own_ true love. And Captain Olsen-“

She paused, drew in a deep breath, and steeled herself for the most ridiculous part of her lie.

“I have found him!” she announced dramatically, holding up Winn’s shoe as if it were the holy grail itself. “A few days ago, in fact, in the same town we met Captain J’onzz in.”

There were jaws hanging open everywhere Kara looked. Lady Jacqueline and her daughters, Alex, Winn, Captain Olsen- only J’onn had managed to hide his reaction. Kara plunged on.

“He’s everything the kingdom needs him to be,” she said, doing her best to sound hopelessly in love. “Charming, handsome, considerate of his people, just and fair, fabulously wealthy, a prince of course-“ Winn, behind Kara, failed to hold back a snort of laughter, which he quickly disguised as a cough.

“And most importantly,” Kara went on, “he is the owner of this shoe. Which is important because, alas and alack, he fled before I could ask his name. But he is out there, somewhere, Captain. My one true love.”

The captain glanced at J’onn, a questioning look on his face. “Is this true?”

“You don’t trust the princess to know her own heart?” J’onn retorted. After a moment of deliberation, Captain Olsen’s features relaxed into a smile.

“Well, Your Highness, that’s wonderful,” he said. “You understand my suspicion; this is a matter of national importance. But let me be the first to offer you my congratulations. And rest assured, we’ll soon find this prince of yours. If I may?” He plucked the shoe from her hand, holding it up to his soldiers’ view. “Here’s our next mission, men. We’ll search every noble-born young man in the kingdom and find the one who fits this shoe.” He turned back to Kara. “After we’ve escorted you safely back to the palace, of course.”

“Actually, Captain, I was thinking...I’m the only one who’s seen my true love. I would know him anywhere. Wouldn’t it be wiser, considering how important my marriage is to the kingdom, that I help in the search? You and your men could take the shoe and search one half of the kingdom, and J’onn and I could search the other half. You know he’d be enough protection for me. And it would speed up the prince-finding process.”

Captain Olsen bit his lip. “You’re right about that,” he said, “but I don’t know. Captain J’onzz is only one person...” 

“I’m a better knight than any man in this kingdom, present company included,” J’onn interrupted. “And if you honor the princess’ request, I swear on my knightly honor that no harm shall come to her. I’ll take her safely to the end of the quest, or die trying.”

Something in the older man’s face must have convinced the captain. He nodded slowly. “Alright then. For the good of the kingdom- and only to hasten the marriage- I leave the princess in your hands.” He replaced his helmet, tucking the shoe under his arm. “Let’s go, men. We’ve got a quest of our own.”

_Quest_? Kara thought to herself, watching the knights leave the hall. _More like a wild goose chase. I hate having to lie, but at least I’ve bought myself some time._

As the door closed behind the last knight, and Lady Jacqueline and her daughters vanished upstairs with Winn on their heels, J’onn stepped close to Kara. “That,” he said, “was an absolutely _mental_ idea.”

“Well, it worked!”

“Shockingly, yes.”

“That’s not the only wild idea she’s had today,” Alex said. Quickly, she filled J’onn in on Kara’s invitation to Winn.

“Kara?” J’onn said sternly. “Is it possible you’ve been trying to persuade this young man to abandon his family?”

Kara scoffed. “They’re not much of a family! You have to admit-“

“Because if you are,” J’onn said, “I would have to be against it, as a knight. But after all the work your friend has done, I’d say he’s at least entitled to the use of a horse. And if he were to use one to follow us, perhaps I would be too distracted with the next steps of our journey to notice his presence before we’d gone too far for him to turn back.” He kept his face dead serious, but he winked.

“Oh!” Kara said. “I’ll tell him! I mean, we’ll see what happens, I suppose.” J’onn smirked and walked off to see to the packing.

Kara wasted no time relaying the message to Winn. Initially he refused again, but Jacqueline and her daughters made themselves so extremely unpleasant during the afternoon, barking orders and insults, that he quickly reconsidered. By the time they rode out of the village at sunset, they were four instead of three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the company of adventurers doth expand, treasured readers. Winn is but the first of many who shall be added to the questers’ numbers as this story proceeds. The next chapter, in fact, shall bring us another new acquaintance or two. And it may be written more quickly than usual, because the bard is still in quarantine and has now descended slightly into madness. I wish thee all a blessed Easter, and shall return soon with Part the Seventh.


	7. In Which The Quest Changes Course

It took a few days for Winn to find his footing with the rest of the group. As the only commoner among them, he was even more awkward and bumbling than usual at first, earning himself many a sarcastic comment from Alex. But it didn't take long for him to settle in. Eternally cheerful and always ready with a joke, he was the perfect counter to Alex's cynicism and J'onn's sternness. Before the week was out he had formed the beginnings of a fast friendship with Kara, was mostly tolerated by Alex and had even managed to make J'onn crack a smile once or twice.

Unfortunately, having never gone far beyond the walls of his little village, he completely lacked the wariness and caution that his fellow travelers had. "He really is like a rabbit," Alex grumbled to Kara. "A little baby rabbit skipping through a meadow without a thought as to whether there might be a hawk around. You say jump, and he does, right off a cliff, smiling the whole time!"

"Well, he never expected to get away from that family of his," Kara answered. "This is like a miracle for him. After something like that, it's only natural that he'll be a bit starry-eyed for a while, but he'll get over it."

"I hope," Alex muttered under her breath. The group fell into silence for a while, letting the horses pick their way over the rocky, uneven terrain. Though the western end of the kingdom, where they were bound, was mostly flatland, they would have to cross a large mountain region to get there.

Suddenly J'onn pulled his horse to a stop. "That's strange," he said. "Look up ahead, through those trees."

Kara squinted, peering through the stand of pines that J'onn had indicated. She gasped. "That looks like a castle turret!"

"It is," Alex said. "But that makes no sense! This is open land, only crossed by hunters and travelers. There's no reason why a castle would be here!"

"It wasn't here two years ago when I last came this way," J'onn answered. "So unless castles have suddenly gotten into the habit of sprouting from the ground, I'd say there's magic afoot."

"And our route takes us right past it," Kara whispered.

Winn gulped. "Aren't we trying to avoid magic, thanks to the unknown curse-wielder who could be anyone and all that sort of thing? I don't know if I have a say in this, but I suggest we go another way."

Kara never got the chance to answer. With a sharp, lightning-like crack, a bright flash of light appeared, blocking the path ahead of them. J'onn's horse whinnied in fright, and the other two reared up, nostrils flaring. Kara grabbed desperately for the saddle and her sister, managing to hold onto both. Winn, not so lucky, landed in an ungraceful heap on the ground, scrambling back from the pulsating ball of light.

As quickly as it had appeared, it faded, leaving in its place a tall, willowy woman in a glowing white dress that flickered as if it were formed from fire. She had sharp features, curling golden hair that fell just to her shoulders and a look in her green eyes that made Kara feel something like a gnat confronting a dragonfly. She realized a split second later that her mental metaphor had been more correct than she thought. A pair of clear, angular wings, almost identical to a dragonfly's but larger, jutted from the woman's back.

The fairy- she couldn't be anything else- ran a hand over her skirt, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle. She looked up, fixing them all with her piercing gaze.

"I suggest you don't," she said crisply. No one spoke, trying to decipher what she meant. It was Alex, finally, who asked.

"You suggest we don't...what?"

"Ah. I thought you might be the one to speak up. I suggest you don't go another way, of course. You need to visit that castle."

"H-how do you know that?" Kara stammered, unable to meet the green eyes for more than a second or two. The fairy laughed scornfully.

"I know, if it was not already obvious, because I'm a fairy. Do try to keep up, my dear Kara."

"Being a fairy means you're a wielder of magic," J'onn said. "And you seem to know who the princess is. There's evil among the fae just as there is among humanity. How do I know you're not the one who cursed Kara to begin with?" His gloved hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, poised to draw the weapon.

The fairy rolled her eyes. "Firstly, even if I was responsible for the curse, that sword wouldn't do you much good against me. Secondly, I couldn't hurt Kara even if I wanted to. I'm her fairy godmother. I'm allowed only to help her, never to harm."

Winn finally found his voice. “You- _You’re_ Kara’s fairy godmother?”

“Yes. Yours too, and Alex’s. Not the captain’s, I’m afraid.”

”You’re fairy godmother to...all of us?”

“Of course, and many other mortals too. There wouldn’t be nearly enough of us fairies to go around if we each only looked after one person. My name is Catherine, but you may call me Cat. Everyone does. Heaven only knows why my first mortal godchild thought I needed a nickname all those centuries ago, but it seems to have stuck.”

“That’s impossible,” Kara said. 

“For me to have a nickname? Well, I can’t say I mind it-“

“No, no, for you to be Winn’s and Alex’s fairy godmother. Only royals have fairy godmothers...don’t they?”

“Actually, no. Everyone has a fairy godmother. But only royals seem to get themselves into the kind of predicaments that require our intervention. A sleeping curse, for example. However did you manage that?” The fairy snapped her fingers, instantly setting Winn back on his feet (which surprised him so much he almost fell over again).

“I didn’t manage it,” Kara answered. “Someone put it on me. That’s why we’ve been-“

“Looking for me. Yes, I know. A good idea, given what you mortals think about us fairies. But, given reality-“ Cat laughed a little. “What were you going to do? Stroll into a fairy ring, ask “Who’s my fairy godmother,” and hope you weren’t instantaneously turned into a tulip? No, no, no. You can’t just seek out your fairy godmother. She has to appear to you.”

“Which you just did,” J’onn said. “Although you haven’t told us why.”

“Ordinarily I _wouldn’t_ appear like this,” Cat answered. “But you’ve arrived at a critical crossroads, the four of you. And you, J’onn J’onzz, were about to choose the wrong path. So I decided to step in.”

“The wrong path,” J’onn repeated, frowning.

“Yes. You may not be one of my godchildren, Captain, but I’ve been watching this whole quest since it began, and I’ve gotten to know you all the same. You’re cautious to a fault, taking nothing at face value. Had I not appeared, you would have led your little band of adventurers far around that mysterious castle in the distance. A soldier would call it a wise decision, but a fairy knows better. It is absolutely imperative that the four of you visit that castle. There’s another curse that must be broken in this kingdom.”

“ _Another_ curse?” Kara said. “How many could there possibly be?”

“By the time you reach the end of this quest, you’ll have broken- or failed to break- four.”

A solemn silence fell as they all considered the fairy’s words. _Four curses. Mine and Alex’s, and whichever one awaits us at that castle...but what’s the fourth curse? And who was cursed with it?_

“What happens after we visit the castle?” Alex said suddenly. “We were only journeying to the western end of the kingdom to find you and ask you who cursed Kara. Where do we go now that we no longer have to look for you?”

“I don’t know who cursed Kara,” Cat answered. “Dark magic of that nature is too strong for even fairies to see through. You’ll have to answer that question on your own, if it’s ever answered at all. But, as for where you go next-“

Her gaze unfocused suddenly. She seemed, somehow, to be looking inward. Her brow knit in a troubled expression, and she stood there for a long moment. No one spoke.

At last, with a shuddering breath, her eyes returned to their normal piercing state. But there was a shadow in them now; something she had seen had bothered her.

“You must travel to the castle,” she said slowly. “You must take what you find there and continue to the western end as you had planned, where the next part of the quest will reveal itself.”

“The next part?” Winn asked. “What’s that?“

Cat rolled her eyes. “If I knew that, I would have told you. Honestly, do any of you mortals have any idea how fairies work?”

“So that’s it, then?” Alex demanded. “Journey to the dark castle of doom for God knows what reason, then go traipsing merrily along to the west end without the faintest idea why?”

“If you want to reach the end of this quest, that’s exactly what you’ll do. Did you expect me to spell it out step by step for you? Snap my fingers, scatter flowers on the path and have you all home for supper with broken curses in tow?” Cat shook her head. “No. Nothing worth your while could ever be that easy. I can’t change the outcome, and I can’t make the journey any smoother. All I can do is guide you along the way.”

Her voice lost its snide, cutting edge. Suddenly it seemed to reverberate with authority.

“This will not be an easy quest,” she said. “Every one of you has a hard road ahead. And whether you succeed spectacularly or fail miserably- only you can decide that. You will be tested in ways you could never imagine, and you will feel as if you’ve reached your darkest hour.” Her face hardened. “But it won’t be. The darkest hour will come when you think all danger is past. And whether there will be a dawning after it, even a fairy could not say.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as if to steady herself. She seemed calmer, less troubled, when she opened them again.

“I can’t change what will be,” she repeated. “But I can offer one small gift. A word of advice for each of you.” She crossed to stand in front of J’onn. “You first, Sir Knight, because your trial comes the soonest. You have been through many battles and suffered great loss. You too will have a curse to break, and you can only break it if you forget what you didn’t know.”

J’onn’s forehead creased in thought, but he only nodded, accepting the words.

“Lady Alex,” Cat said. “For you the test will be simpler than you think, but harder than you know. You must take fate into your own hands. You cannot wait for your curse to break. You must do the breaking, and you must do it alone."

“But the curse breaks with true love,” Alex said. “How do I break it alone?”

Cat didn’t answer, moving in front of Winn. “Be careful,” she said. "You have enemies, and they have not forgotten you. They will take away the thing that matters most. You will be less than you want to be, but more than anyone thinks...if you have the courage to choose rightly.”

Winn bit his lip, his face turning milky pale, and Kara saw that his hands were shaking. But she had no time to offer a word of comfort. The fairy came to stand in front of her, staring at her with those arresting green eyes.

She was silent for a long moment. Finally she sighed. 

"For you, Princess Kara Zorel of Kryptonia, I can say only this. The enemy that comes in daylight may prove to be a friend. But beware, above all others, the dragon in the dark."

She smiled, a genuine smile, surprising Kara with its warmth. And then, in a flash of light, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many questions doth this chapter raise, treasured readers! What awaits our intrepid adventurers at the mysterious castle? What is the fourth curse, and who does it belong to? What- or who- is the dragon in the dark? And what did all of Cat’s cryptic riddles mean? I promise thee, readers, answers shall come in due time. I wouldst be delighted to hear thy guesses as to what the riddles mean, and shall return soon with Part the Eighth!


	8. In Which The Travelers Come To The Cursed Castle

“Well, here we are!” Alex announced, her voice falsely cheerful. “At the dark, foreboding and obviously magical castle, which we were told to visit by an obviously magical woman who may or may not be our fairy godmother, with absolutely no way to open the gate and no one in sight to open it for us. What do you think we’re supposed to do now?”

Kara had to admit, the castle didn’t look like the most inviting place. It was grand and imposing...or at least it had been once. Now it was shabby and dilapidated, with a forlorn, forgotten, lonely air. The fact that it had been built entirely by magic didn’t improve matters.

“Maybe, if we wait for awhile, someone will come?” Winn ventured. Alex grunted skeptically.

“Or maybe we should just try to open the gate!” she said. “Maybe it’s just for decoration and it doesn’t actually lock.” Her voice dripped with her familiar sarcasm, and though the problem was indeed a grave one, Kara had to hide her smile. It was always good to have a reminder that the frog on her shoulder was still the same fiery Alex on the inside.

J’onn shrugged. “Well, what can it hurt?” He put his hand on the small door set in the castle’s massive gate and pushed.

To everyone’s amazement, the gate swung wide open. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Kara laughed.

“Finally!” she said. “Something on this quest that’s _easier_ than we thought it would be instead of _harder_! Come on, let’s find out why Cat wanted us here!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” J’onn cautioned, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her back. “I’ll go first, princess.” He drew his sword. “If there are any unpleasant surprises waiting for us in there, I’d rather their first acquaintance is with cold steel, not you.”

They crept through the gate, all of them a little unnerved by the eerie stillness of the place. Kara kept close behind J’onn, and Winn brought up the rear, looking only seconds away from panicking outright.

Though the castle was certainly intimidating, Kara didn’t feel as frightened as she did intrigued. Hints of what the castle would have looked like in its full glory were scattered here and there- dry brown stems of twining ivy in lacy patterns on the walls, a graceful path of gravel now overgrown with weeds, flowerbeds that must have been lovely once.

“I don’t understand it,” she whispered. “If someone was going to go to all the trouble of making a castle out of thin air, why would they make it so...sad?”

“They wouldn’t,” J’onn answered. “Remember what the fairy said. This place is cursed. We’re not seeing it as it’s meant to be seen.”

“But we’re supposed to take something with us,” Winn said. “There’s nothing here. So why are _we_ here?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Alex put in. “This whole place is decaying. There’s no sign of life anywhere. Why was it so important that we come to a dead castle?”

No one answered. No one knew what the answer to the question was.

They walked on, up the overgrown path that led to the main door of the castle. A knocker, in the unusual shape of a rose, waited on the door, tarnished but still gleaming.

“J’onn?” Alex said softly. The knight, switching the sword to his other hand, brought the knocker down three times on the ancient wood. In the stillness, the sound echoed louder than it should have, reverberating until it was almost thunderous.

For a moment there was no response. And then Kara caught the faint sound of quick, light footsteps on the other side of the door. “Say nothing of our quest just yet,” J’onn ordered quickly. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, we’re only ordinary travelers seeking hospitality.”

The four of them tensed as the bolt slid back, preparing for the worst. Kara’s imagination raced with images of what might be waiting for them behind that door- a dark wizard, a wicked fairy, a monster.

But when the door finally opened, it revealed none of these. Standing on the other side of the door was a tall woman a few years younger than J’onn, clad in a simple, tattered grey-brown dress that, like her castle, must have been beautiful once. The woman, in contrast to everything around her, was beautiful still, with a golden-brown complexion that perfectly set off her dark eyes and hair. She smiled at the sight of them, but it was a puzzled smile with guardedness behind it. Clearly she didn’t have visitors often.

J’onn sheathed his sword quickly, making a shallow bow. “I apologize, my lady, if we’ve inconvenienced you. My companions and I are passing through and found ourselves in need of a place to stay.”

“The little I have, you’re welcome to,” the lady answered. “Although it surprises me that you’d come here. This place isn’t what it used to be, and most travelers pass right by. I haven’t had guests in years.” She stepped to the side, holding our her hand in a gesture of invitation. “Come in, please.”

She led them into the splendid entry hall of the castle, full of furniture draped with sheets and gold trimmings that no longer shone as brightly. The four travelers gazed around them wide-eyed; even Kara, who had grown up in a palace, had never seen one as grand as this.

“You can leave your sword here, Sir Knight,” the lady said suddenly. J’onn’s eyes widened in surprise, but hers twinkled. “No common traveler would have those courtly manners of yours. I knew you had to be a knight.”

“I could have told him that,” Winn murmured under his breath. A look from J’onn, and he quickly fell silent, though he couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. Kara giggled in spite of herself.

“Are you alone here, my lady?” J’onn asked, raising an eyebrow as they walked further into the castle and no one else appeared.

“Yes. As you might have noticed, this place has...well, it’s fallen on hard times. I decided it’d be better to look after myself, so I dismissed any servants who hadn’t already left. But I actually like it better on my own. Oh, and there’s no need to call me “my lady.” My name is M’gann.” 

She stopped before a plain wooden door, her smile turning almost apologetic. “I eat in the kitchen most nights,” she said. “There’s not much point to using the dining room when it’s only me. And the food is rather plain, only what I can grow myself. There’s a village not far from here, but I don’t like going into town.”

“You’re gracious to provide us with anything at all,” J’onn reassured her. “And after weeks of a traveler’s diet, it’ll be a banquet to us.” He smiled, and M’gann smiled back, a tint of pink coming into her cheeks.

“Well, would you look at that?” Alex whispered in Kara’s ear. “Methinks the good knight might perchance be smitten.”

“Smitten?” Winn yelped. “You mean she’s going to attack us?”

Alex stared at him incredulously. “Smitten as in he _likes_ her, you clodpole!” she exclaimed in a combination shout and whisper. “Haven’t you ever thought a girl was pretty before?”

“Of course, but I thought you meant smitten the other way!”

“ _Why_ would I mean it the other way?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because we’re in the middle of a _cursed castle,_ maybe?”

“Argh!”

Kara rolled her eyes, depositing Alex on a side table so the two could continue their whispered argument while she followed J’onn into the kitchen and busied herself with setting the table. Her mouth watered at the smell of the chicken-and-vegetable soup M’gann was dishing up. In no time at all they were gathered around the table; after J’onn, at M’gann’s request, said a quick blessing over the meal, they tucked in hungrily.

Kara could have eaten an entire pot of the soup, and a whole loaf of the soft barley bread that went with it. The meal was wonderful, and it vanished quickly. Finally J’onn pushed back his chair and smiled at M’gann, nodding his thanks. “I’m afraid you were mistaken,” he said. “Nothing so delicious could ever be described as plain food.” M’gann flushed, smiling shyly back and fiddling with the collar of her dress. Kara, Winn and Alex all exchanged knowing glances. But only Kara noticed the fleeting look of sadness that crossed their host’s face, and she wondered about it.

“I’d be happy to handle the dishes,” Winn offered, half rising from his chair. Kara knew he still felt the pressure to earn his keep that he’d experienced with his stepfamily, and he felt more comfortable if he was doing something to help. But J’onn waved a hand. 

“Not just yet, Winn. I think we should come clean to our hostess first, about why we’re really here.”

M’gann drew back, instantly wary, but said nothing. J’onn drew a long sigh.

“This place is under a curse, isn’t it, my lady?”

After a moment, M’gann nodded. “It is. As...as am I.” She said the last phrase as if she were afraid to voice it, but J’onn only nodded. 

“As you might have noticed, between the princess and the talking frog, being cursed isn’t exactly an unusual thing for us,” he said. “We are on a quest, my lady. A quest to break curses. And our paths recently crossed with a fairy who sent us to you.”

M’gann gasped, one hand flying to her mouth. “Cat promised she would send someone,” she whispered. “It was...it was you?”

“I believe so,” J’onn answered. “We were told we would find something here that we were to take along with us. From the look of it, that’s you.”

“You know Cat?” Kara asked. M’gann smiled sadly.

“I do. She’s my fairy godmother, in fact.”

“How many godchildren does she have?” Alex asked no one in particular.

“Some time ago,” M’gann continued, “I was...well, I was married. To a user of dark magic. It wasn’t a happy situation, and eventually I abandoned him. When I woke the next morning, I was under a curse. I would...I would rather not say what it is.”

“This dark magic-user wasn’t named Maxwell Lord, was he?” Alex asked. M’gann shook her head. “Oh, good. I don’t want to have to wait in line when I’m back to my old self and I introduce his face to my fist.”

“And the fairy?” J’onn asked, shaking his head helplessly at Alex’s comment.

“Cat found me the next morning, sobbing in the forest. She’s the one who created the castle for me, to keep him out. And when I told her I was afraid he would come for me anyway, she made it look run-down and dilapidated so that no one would think I was there. I’ve hidden in plain sight here ever since. I was too afraid to try to venture out and break the curse myself, so Cat told me she would send someone to help me. I suppose she sent all of you.”

J’onn reached across the table and took her hand. “And we will help you,” he promised. “Come with us, M’gann. We’ll break these curses one way or another, but you won’t have to do it alone. It will be easier to face this with friends at your side.”

M’gann nodded, mustering a wan smile. “I was hoping you would ask me,” she said. “Of course I’ll come. It’s my only chance.”

“That’s settled, then,” J’onn said, sounding pleased.

“Settled,” M’gann repeated. But there was a sheen of tears in her eyes, and she blinked quickly as if to hold them back. Kara frowned. _She doesn’t seem happy about this. What was the curse? And whatever it is, why is she hiding it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If ‘twas not clear, adored readers, J’onn and M’gann are playing Beauty and the Beast- very different versions, as we soon shall see. However, the beginning of this tale as old as time doth require a small confession from the bard.
> 
> In certain cases, like the one in this chapter, ‘twould prove impossible for a fairy tale to succeed without a defined love interest. Thus, in the interest of complete honesty, I must warn thee that a few ships involving minor or side characters might make an appearance. But do not fret, O lovers of pairings; these ships shall be few and far between. In addition, they shall only occur between characters whose love interests are not generally disputed (such as J’onn and M’gann) or characters who are canonically married (such as Clark and Lois; thy bard is unworthy to meddle with such an iconic pair). Our main characters, who sail many ships upon the fandom sea, shall remain free and clear of romance so that thou, exalted reader, canst decide for thyself whom their true love is. (And, even for those few minor characters whose love interest is stated in this story, thou art at liberty to headcanon a different happy ever after if thou so desirest).
> 
> It is my sincere hope that these few ships shall not lessen thine enjoyment of the tale. If thou hast enjoyed it thus far, to receive thine comments wouldst spark much joy. I shall, as always, return soon with Part the Ninth.


	9. In Which The Dragon Strikes

As the group progressed further toward the western end of Kryptonia, they settled naturally into a pattern during the day's travel. Kara had a tendency to ride ahead of the others a little, scouting ahead and enjoying the freedom to explore, with Alex either on her shoulder or on the saddle horn. Winn stayed close enough to be able to talk with the two of them, but still kept to the relative safety of the center. And J'onn brought up the rear, making sure no danger could surprise them from the back. M'gann rode by his side, the two of them talking in low voices; though she remained shy and somewhat guarded around the knight, it was clear something was blossoming between the pair of them.

"Four curses," Kara said to Alex and Winn one afternoon. "I keep thinking about that. There's mine, of course, and Alex's, and now M'gann's. But whose is the fourth?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Alex answered. "None of what that fairy said made any sense. How am I supposed to break a curse by myself if I need true love to break it? How can J'onn forget something he doesn't know? It's all just meaningless riddles."

"It's this "dragon in the dark" that worries me," Winn said. "I mean, are we supposed to be on the watch for a literal dragon? Or is it some enemy we haven't made yet?"

"I wouldn't say it's a literal dragon," Kara said slowly. "That seems unlikely, given my cousin's reputation as a dragon-slayer and all."

Suddenly Mayarah threw up her head, her eyes wide and her ears flicking back and forth. Winn's horse sidestepped with an uneasy nicker. "Whoa, girl, whoa," Kara cried, fighting to keep the golden mare under control. "What's gotten into them?"

"Kara?" J'onn called, spurring his own mount into a canter to catch up to them. "What's going on?"

"Shh," M'gann said, holding up one finger. She listened intently for a moment, and then her face paled. "Do you hear that?" she whispered.

Kara strained her ears, trying to make out whatever M'gann had heard. Suddenly she caught the sound- a dull, repetitive boom, like rapid, distant thunder. Distant, but coming closer.

"What is it?" she whispered.

J'onn's face hardened, and he drew his sword. "That's a dragon's wings."

"What was it you were saying about us not having to watch for a literal dragon?" Alex asked. Kara didn't answer, rifling through her saddlebag for her dagger.

"W-what do we do?" Winn's voice was higher than usual, and he held his horse's reins in a viselike grip.

"Don't panic," J'onn said, though his own voice was tense. "M'gann, how are you with a weapon?"

"I've got a knife," she answered. "Though I haven't used it in a while."

"Good. Winn, take Alex and the horses and get somewhere safe. If the beast doesn't see us, we'll join you when it's clear. But if you see it land, start making as much noise as you can. Their ears are sensitive. You'll disorient it." Winn, white-faced, caught the reins J'onn threw to him, reaching out to move Alex to his own shoulder before galloping off the way they had come. J'onn turned back to Kara and M'gann. "As much as I wish I could send you somewhere safe, princess, we're going to need every skilled fighter we can get, especially with Alex still cursed."

"I don't mind fighting," Kara answered. "If Kal can do it, I can do it. Just tell me how."

"I'll get its attention. You and M'gann circle around it and stab at its back legs if you can. You'll be clear of the fire breath, but watch for the tail; it's like a whip. Hopefully we'll confuse it enough that it won't know where to attack first. Dragons are dangerous, but they're not too bright. If it doesn't know what to do next, it'll give up. That may be our only chance."

"I thought dragons were only dangerous if someone controlled them," Kara said. J'onn nodded grimly.

"Sleeping Beauty," he said, "I believe whoever cursed you may have just made themselves known."

Kara swallowed hard, tightening her grip on her dagger and trying to steady her racing heart. She couldn't help wishing that she had Alex by her side, in her regular human form. This would be the first time on this quest- the first time in her _life_ \- that she had faced real danger. _But I'm ready for it. I have to be._

A shadow passed over the sun, huge and black with wings as wide as the length of a tree. Kara looked up, trying to determine any of the creature's weak spots. But there seemed to be none. "Dragon in the dark" was a fitting description for this monster. Its scales were as black as night, glinting like obsidian. It was almost beautiful, in a terrifying, lethal way. It swooped low, and Kara caught a glimpse of an emerald-green eye.

Her breath caught. Somehow, some way, the look in the dragon's eyes seemed...familiar.

But she had no time to think. The beast had seen them.

The dragon banked sharply, turning faster than Kara had ever imagined possible for such a massive creature. It arched its neck, releasing a blast of green fire into the air. Kara could feel the heat, the rush of air from its wings as it descended to earth, landing with a thundering crash. "Ready yourselves!" J'onn shouted. The warning came just in time, as another plume of the unearthly fire shot from the dragon's mouth.

For a moment Kara couldn't move, frozen to the spot with awe and terror as she stared at the massive, magical beast before her. _Someone's in your head,_ she thought numbly. _Someone is using you. The person who stole twenty years of my life is here in front of me...inside you._

The sight of M'gann, darting in behind the dragon's leg, woke Kara from her temporary daze. Now was no time to get lost in thought. Now was the time to act if she wanted to live.

M'gann, she saw, had gone for the dragon's left back leg. Kara went for the right, wishing she'd thought to bring a proper longsword from her cousin's palace. Against a human enemy, the dagger might be enough. But against a dragon, she would have to get in close before she could use her weapon. Luckily, J'onn had managed to capture the beast's attention, and the dragon didn't see either Kara or M'gann as they moved near to its legs, keeping an eye on the terrible tail.

A sudden cacophony of clanging metal pots and pans assaulted their eardrums. The dragon snorted in irritation, tossing its head as smoke trailed upwards from its nostrils. It launched a plume of flame in the direction of the noise, but Winn, though he was doing his job well, had made sure to do it far out of the creature's range.

J'onn darted in close, striking out at the dragon's foreleg with his sword and jumping back before it could lower its head. As soon as he was clear M'gann jabbed her knife into the space between the scales on the left hind leg. The dragon reflexively lifted the injured limb, its tail thrashing back and forth, and Kara immediately did the same on her own side. Now, thrown off balance, the dragon struggled for a moment to keep its footing. "We need to get out of here!" M'gann shouted above its pained bellow. Kara nodded, and they ran for it, hoping J'onn could keep the dragon from seeing them.

He did. But as the beast's tail whipped around, the spiked end of it caught M'gann's shoulder, throwing her to the ground. Now the beast did turn, its green eyes narrowed and cold. "M'gann!" J'onn shouted. The dragon opened its mouth, preparing to launch another blast of fire.

At the last possible second M'gann managed to roll out of the way, taking cover behind a boulder as the area where she had been, only seconds before, was washed in a green blaze. If the dragon's unnatural aggression didn't give away the magical force controlling it, the color of the fire did. No dragon, Kara knew, could produce a flame like that on their own. She didn't want to see what that flame would do if it actually struck a target.

The dragon was becoming bewildered now. It glared at the fighters with human-like hate that sent chills down Kara's spine, but its attacks were less precise and forceful than they had been. The unceasing noise from Winn and Alex, combined with the three-pronged assault, was beginning to be too much for the beast to handle.

But if anything, its confusion only made it more determined. It took two lumbering steps forward, lowering its head menacingly at J'onn. Kara jumped in, stabbing viciously at the creature's leg. It whipped its head around, staring directly into her face.

And it stopped. Its eyes were wide and wild, with an almost tortured look. Smoke wafted from its nostrils, but it didn't exhale the flame that could have killed Kara in an instant. Instead it simply stood frozen, gazing at her as if it wanted to memorize the way she looked. Once it did open its mouth, but seemed to decide against any action.

Kara, bewildered, could do nothing but stare back. She had never seen the eyes of a monster look so unbelievably human. _But whose eyes am I seeing? The dragon's? Or the eyes of the human who's controlling it?_

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw J'onn lunge forward to strike the beast again, this time hitting home. The dark scales of the dragon's leg darkened with blood, and it threw its head up with a high-pitched shriek, like an eagle's cry mixed with a horse's whinny. The blow proved to be the final straw. Shaking its head as if to clear it, the dragon spread its wings and turned tail, taking flight on unsteady wings. Its retreat was faster than Kara had imagined was possible for such a large creature. In seconds, it was nothing but a dark shadow against the bright afternoon sky.

Kara lowered her weapon, watching the beast vanish into the distance. "Looks like he's had enough," she panted.

"She," J'onn corrected, sheathing his own sword and crossing quickly to where M'gann still lay on the ground.

"I don't even want to know how you know that," Kara answered.

J'onn didn't reply, gently helping M'gann to her feet. "I'm alright, I'm alright," M'gann reassured him. "She bruised my shoulder, that's all."

"It could have been worse," J'onn said. "So much worse. This attack was a bit too close for comfort. And I don't think we've seen the last of the dragon in the dark."

"Do you really think whoever cursed me sent the dragon?" Kara asked.

"I've no doubt of it. Why else would Cat tell you to beware the dragon above all others? Whoever was in that dragon's head today, Kara, is the worst enemy you've got."

Kara stared off into the sky where the black dragon had vanished, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows as she thought. She couldn't forget the dragon's green eyes, the look it had given her...a human look. There was something familiar about that look, but try as she might, she couldn't place it. As far as she knew, she had no enemies. So who had she glimpsed behind the dragon's eyes?

"Don't worry, princess," J'onn said, putting a comforting hand on Kara's shoulder. "We'll be better prepared for the next attack when it comes. I said I'd get you to the end of this quest, and no dragon is going to change that."

He stopped suddenly, listening for a moment, and then slapped a hand over his face, shaking his head. "Kara," he said, clearly exasperated, "would you go tell Winn to stop banging those pots now, please?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bard feels insecure about this chapter, for the bard’s battle scenes doth suck. But regardless, wonderful readers, I wouldst love to hear thy thoughts! Who, pray tell, might be behind the attack from the dragon in the dark? Is it the same person who cursed Kara? Why does the dragon seem so familiar? Comments are the lifeblood of thine humble storyteller; I wouldst love to hear from thee if thou hast enjoyed the tale thus far. I shall return soon with Part the Tenth.


	10. In Which The Travelers Receive A Rude Awakening

Things were noticeably subdued for the rest of that day. M'gann and J'onn hung back, discussing the next steps that should be taken to ensure they continued the quest safely. Winn was full of worried questions, and Kara tried her best to answer them even though she too was shaken. She hadn't had time to feel afraid during the battle, but now that it was over, she was beginning to realize the full weight of what she had set out to do. This wasn't some harmless adventure full of fun and excitement. This was a real, meaningful quest, with real danger. She hadn't come to terms with that fact before, but she was beginning to understand it now. And it was a sobering truth. _There is someone out there who's my enemy. Someone who hates me, and is willing to use something as dangerous as a dragon against me. Somebody wants me dead._

Surprisingly, however, it was Alex who seemed most affected by the attack. Gone was the teasing sarcasm and fearless bravado that had been present since they left the palace. She was sullen and quiet, hardly even looking at anyone, curt and irritable with the few comments or questions directed her way. It was obvious that something was wrong, and by unspoken agreement the others let her be. They went on mostly in silence, each of them wrapped up in their own thoughts.

It was sunset, the sky painted in streaks of orange and pink and scarlet, before J'onn finally pulled his horse to a stop. "Let's camp here for the night," he said. No one argued. J'onn set to work unsaddling the horses and staking them out to graze while Winn wandered off to search for firewood, M'gann busied herself preparing a thick, nourishing stew and Kara laid out their bedrolls. Alex, for her part, sat down on the end of a log, staring distantly into space. When the meal was ready they gathered around the fire, saying little as they ate. Though she didn't press her for answers, Kara couldn't help sneaking a worried glance at Alex every so often.

Very little escaped M'gann's notice, and Kara's concern didn't either. She rose gracefully, brushing off the hem of her dress. "I think I heard a brook a little way off," she said. "Winn, would you get the horses for me? I'm sure they'd appreciate a drink. And I could use a hand with the dishes."

"We'll need more firewood later tonight," J'onn said, catching on to M'gann's intentions. "I'll take care of that." They separated in different directions, leaving Kara and Alex alone. Kara sat down on the log next to Alex, uncertain whether Alex would appreciate her presence.

"Go ahead and ask me," Alex said after a moment. "I know you want to."

"Something's wrong, isn't it?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?”

"Well, you almost bit J'onn's head off when he asked if you were alright."

Alex drew a long sigh. 'Because I'm not alright, Kara. I'm...I'm _furious_. I'm furious with Maxwell Lord, and I'm tired of this curse, and I want to be myself again." There was anger in her voice, but Kara heard the hint of tears behind it.

"I'm supposed to be your lady-in-waiting," she said. "When you were asleep, I was on the guard. I'm supposed to be able to protect you. And here you were today, fighting a _dragon_ while I ran and hid. _Winn_ was more of a help to you than I was, and he barely knows which end of a sword is which. I can't- I can't do anything, for anyone, and I hate it."

Now Kara understood. A stab of pain flashed through her; how she wished Alex's wish was granted right this moment, so she could throw her arms around her.

"Oh, Alex," she said sorrowfully. "I know how you feel. I've felt the same thing since I woke up and realized all the things I never got to see. I never got to say goodbye to Kal's parents, or see him grow up, or get married, or celebrate when my nephew was born. There were...there were so many things I missed while I was asleep, and I'll never get any of them back. But none of that was my fault. I didn't ask to have that curse placed on me, and there's no reason why I should feel guilty over missing all the things I did. Your curse is not your fault. You didn't ask for it, you didn't deserve it, and you're going to break it."

"How? All I've got to help me is a nonsensical riddle from some sardonic fairy."

"Uh, I wouldn't call her that. She did say she was watching us. And she scares me."

"I'm not afraid of Cat," Alex answered. "Behind all that contempt, she's on our side. But Kara, it's different for me than it is for you. You didn't have to live your curse. You were asleep. Me, I wake up every day and think I'm normal, that nothing's wrong...until I remember, and then I'm crushed all over again. All I ever wanted was to stand by your side, to keep you safe."

"And I want you by my side more than anyone," Kara said. "But I can handle myself, Alex."

"I know that, I know that." Alex's voice broke again. "I just wish you didn't have to handle me, too. I can bear you not needing someone else's protection, Kara. In fact, I'm proud of you for that. But I've always been a protector. I'm not used to needing to be protected. I feel so...so...useless."

"You're not useless," Kara said. "Alex, I wouldn't even want to be out on this quest if I didn't have you with me, frog or no frog. Nobody blames you for the curse, nobody thinks you're a burden. Do you think Kal resents me for not being there for him? Do you think J'onn resents M'gann for being so reserved, or Winn for not being any use in a fight? There are things that just can't be controlled, Alex. Nobody blames you for needing help until this curse is broken. Nobody minds giving you that help. We're here for you. And someday, when you're back to your regular self and you break Maxwell Lord's handsome nose without any help from any of us- we'll be there for you then, too."

"I dream of that day," Alex said.

"Me too. It'll come, and soon. J'onn says we'll reach the kingdom's western end by tomorrow morning."

"A lot of good that will do us," Alex said. "Seeing as Cat won't even tell us why we're supposed to be there."

"Well, she didn't tell us what we were going to be doing at that castle either, and we ended up with M'gann, so it can't be all that bad."

"I suppose not," Alex said. Her voice seemed lighter now, not so downcast, and Kara smiled.

"I'm here when you need me," she said.

"I know."

They heard voices, and J'onn stepped out of the trees carrying a bundle of firewood. He glanced up at the quickly darkening sky. "Sorry to leave you two alone with darkness falling," he said.

"That's alright," Kara answered. "We had a nice talk, Alex and I, about our mutual disgust for Maxwell Lord."

"I'm sorry about earlier, J'onn," Alex said sheepishly. "I was feeling a little frustrated about this blasted curse, that's all."

J'onn smiled. "Well, no one could fault you for that." He looked back over his shoulder. "I think I hear Winn and M'gann on their way back. We could all use a good night's rest."

No one disagreed with that suggestion, and in just a few minutes they were stretched out around the fire. Usually Kara tossed and turned restlessly for a while before falling asleep, but tonight, exhausted from the events of the day, she found herself fading fast. The last thing she remembered was the sight of Alex curled up in a little hollow of grass. _Right by my side, where she'll always be._ She smiled, rolled over, and sleep came for her.

* * *

Something woke her hours later. It was still pitch-black; the fire had burned to nothing but embers, and Kara sat still for a moment, dazed and disoriented. _What woke me?_ At first she thought she had jolted herself out of sleep somehow, but looking down she saw that Alex too was awake, eyes narrowed. On the other side of the fire Winn and M'gann still lay sleeping, but J'onn had pushed himself to a half-sitting position, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"J'onn?" Kara said in a low voice.

"Shhh." The knight held up a hand, scanning the trees. M'gann stirred, rolling over and opening her mouth to ask what was going on, but a look from J'onn silenced her. They sat frozen, tense and silent, waiting.

A bush rustled, a twig snapped, and then everything was chaos. At least a dozen attackers exploded from the underbrush, wielding an assortment of swords and clubs, clad in black with scraps of cloth pulled up to hide their faces. J'onn was on his feet in half a second, sword in hand, locked in a savage struggle with three of their unknown enemies moments later. M'gann whipped her knife from her boot, brandishing it threateningly at the two who approached her. "Careful, lads, I've faced tougher things than you today!"

Out of the corner of her eye Kara saw Winn scramble up, wide-eyed with shock, but she had no time to observe more. Alex shouted a warning, and Kara turned back just in time to draw her dagger and parry a savage blow from one of the men. From then on she barely had a chance to think, trading strikes and parries at a breakneck pace and trampling the grass of the campsite under her feet. Battles raged all around her; J'onn had sent one of his challengers to the ground but now found himself facing two more, M'gann lashed out with the speed of a striking cobra to slice one of her opponents on the arm, and Winn had seized a frying pan and was doing the best he could to fend off the two men who loomed over him. _Alex, where's Alex?_ Kara looked around frantically, trying to locate her friend, but in the darkness and the frenzy of the battle, it was a hopeless task. She gritted her teeth, bringing her dagger down on her opponent's sword blade with all the strength she could muster.

But it wasn't enough. It could never be enough. They were outnumbered two to one- they could face a dragon, but they couldn't face this. Little by little, they were losing ground. Metal clanged onto rock as J'onn's sword was forced out of his hand and four of the attackers leaped at him, throwing him to his knees. M'gann cried out in anger, trying her best to fight her way to him, but there was nothing she could do. Kara glanced around for Alex again, but saw nothing.

From behind her came a sickening crack, and she whirled just in time to see Winn crumple to the ground. She had no time even to scream; her attackers took advantage of her distraction. In a single moment two of them pinned her arms behind her back, and a third, who seemed to be the leader, held a dagger to her throat.

"Well, you fought hard," he said, voice muffled due to the cloth over his face. "I'll give you that. Wouldn't expect that from Sleeping Beauty. So let's make sure you're really her."

"She is," another one of the raiders answered, bending to pick up Kara's dagger. He turned it around to show his commander. "Look, engraved on the handle." He pointed to the diamond shield with the S-shaped symbol of hope in the center, the mark of Kryptonian royalty. "That's Kal's crest alright." He spat on the ground as if her cousin's name was a curse.

"So it is," the man holding Kara said. "Well, that answers that question. Forgive me for this, Your Royal Highness."

Kara didn't even have a chance to question what he meant. A heavy blow struck her temple, and the whole world fell away into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot, dear readers, doth thicken. Whoever couldst be responsible for this? I wouldst greatly enjoy thy thoughts and comments, and shall return soon with Part the Eleventh.


	11. In Which A Bargain Is Struck

Pinpricks of light stabbed Kara's eyes. She squeezed them shut with a moan; her head felt like it had its own heartbeat, and the last thing she wanted to do was leave the warm, comforting blackness where nothing hurt.

Unfortunately, the voice shouting in her ear had other ideas. "Kara? Kara, come on, snap out of it. _Kara!”_

Kara groaned again, bringing herself reluctantly back to reality. She blinked in the dim orange glow of...torchlight, that's what it was. Pushing herself to a sitting position, she stared around her in confusion. Cold, clammy stone walls around her, dripping with greenish liquid. She was sitting on a stone floor covered with damp, musty-smelling straw, and she wasn't alone. M'gann sat against the opposite wall of the small, cramped cell, looking just as groggy as Kara felt. And sitting on Kara's shoulder-

"Alex!" Kara cried, as the memories of the night's battle came flooding back to her. "You're alright! I couldn't find you once the battle started! I thought- I thought I'd lost you!"

"I knew we weren't going to win that fight," Alex said. "So I took the opportunity to stash myself in one of those rogues' saddlebags. I came along when they dragged you down here."

"Where is _here_ , exactly?"

"A dungeon, obviously, and I have a good guess whose." The voice wasn't Alex's, and Kara brightened, peering through the iron bars in the front of the cell at the identical one across from them. J'onn sat calmly against one wall, with the still-unconscious Winn lying near the other. "But first, are either of you hurt? Kara? M'gann?"

"My head feels like someone's taken a hammer to it," M'gann said slowly, wincing as she spoke. "Probably because the scoundrels knocked us out. But other than that, I'm in one piece."

"So am I," Kara answered.

"Good. Winn looks to be alright, too, remarkably so for someone foolish enough to try and defend himself from two sword-wielding ruffians with a frying pan, of all things." J'onn shook his head helplessly as he reached out to tap Winn's shoulder. "Come on, lad. Up with you now."

Winn moaned, blinking blearily. "Wha...what happened?" His eyes went wide. "Where are we?"

"As I was telling Kara," J'onn said, "I would guess we've been captured by-"

The screech of the dungeon door being pulled open interrupted him. Footsteps echoed on stone, and a smooth, confident voice rang out.

"They told me my royal guests were awake. I hope the accommodations were satisfactory?"

Kara's brow crinkled as she stared at the man in front of her. He wore a dark purple tunic valuable enough to feed three peasant families for a month, and a small pendant in the shape of a dragon, carved from a green stone or jewel of some kind, hung from his neck. He wasn't anywhere close to good-looking, with a short beard, mocking dark eyes and a sinister smirk on his face. A silver crown, set with more green stones, rested on his bald head.

J'onn grunted. "Your Royal Highness, meet King Lex of the Luthor kingdom."

"In the flesh," the king said, making a shallow bow in Kara's direction. Kara's mouth twisted in disgust.

"Spare me the pleasantries," she snapped. "We both know there's no love lost between our nations. Tell me something, do you really think my cousin's going to appreciate you kidnapping me?"

Lex's smile grew wider. "Ah, yes. How dare I risk the wrath of Saint Kal the Dragon-Slayer, righteous defender of the oppressed and downtrodden, beloved by all-"

"That's laying it on a bit thick," Alex muttered in Kara's ear. But Lex took a step forward before Kara could answer, gripping the iron bars and staring down at her with that wicked smirk still playing over his features.

"Now you tell me something, Your Royal Highness," he said. "You're in my kingdom now. Do you really think your noble cousin can save you here?"

Kara met his gaze fearlessly, showing no emotion, but inside her heart was pounding. _I'm looking at a madman._ She hadn't seen much of the Luthors in the eighteen years before the curse had struck, but she'd heard plenty of stories. And they weren't the kind of stories that made it easy to sleep at night.

For a moment they stayed there, the Kryptonian princess and the Luthor king, eyes locked, unflinching. Then Lex's terrifying sneer melted away. He lifted his hands in an almost peace-making gesture, suddenly as calm and normal as any other man.

"But," he said, "that's not to say that I intend to hurt you. If I wanted to harm a hair on your head, Kara Zorel, I would have done it already. No, no, no. I have a different plan in mind. A proposition, if you will."

"What proposition?" J'onn barked. His hands were clenched into tight fists; obviously he despised the Luthor king as much as Kara was rapidly beginning to.

"I've had spies watching you," Lex said, ignoring J'onn as if he hadn't spoken. "Since you met up with whoever this is, in fact." He gestured dismissively to M'gann. "I know all about this little curse-breaking quest of yours. And it just so happens that I'm in need of a few valiant questers."

Before anyone could ask what he meant, he continued. "As you're well aware, princess, your cherished Kryptonia is a very magical land. Steeped in magic, in fact. Unfortunately, my own country is less familiar with such things. We barely get a taste of magic, let alone know how to fight it."

Kara felt the tiniest crinkle appear on her forehead. _If that's true, it can't have been someone from the Luthor kingdom who sent the black dragon. Which means the person responsible for the curse is some other enemy- one we don't know about._

"However," Lex said, jolting Kara from her thoughts, "I have reason to believe certain events that took place a year or so ago were in fact magical in nature. And I need your help to fix them. Did you ever meet my mother, princess?"

"Once or twice," Kara answered. "I certainly wouldn't describe her in glowing terms."

To her surprise, Lex laughed. "Neither would I. There's a reason why she was forced to abdicate."

"In your favor," M'gann said.

"Let it never be said I don't listen to my people." Lex smirked. "I know exactly the kind of person my mother is, which is why I exiled her. But it seems I didn't do it fast enough." He snapped his fingers, and a burly guard came running, setting down a rickety stool. Lex settled himself onto it as regally as if it had been a throne.

"My mother was a harsh ruler," he said. "There's no doubt about that. Her reign may have been short, but she left her mark." He drew a long sigh. Something like sorrow flickered, just barely, behind his eyes, and Kara studied him closely, trying to decide if it was genuine.

"Do you know I have a sister, princess?" he said suddenly. A small smile flashed over his face as he saw her surprise. "I thought not. She's more reserved than I am- or she was."

"What do you mean _was_?" Alex asked. Kara knew Alex, like her, didn't trust Lex, but she also seemed curious about his purpose for them.

"Perhaps I should start at the beginning. She's really only my half-sister- not my mother's daughter. Despite that, Lena and I were close. She was every bit as brilliant as the rest of our family. Beautiful, too. "Hair as black as ebony, lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow," the minstrels used to say when they sang about her. And she wasn't so...how should I say it? Wasn't so far removed from the common people as the rest of us. Oh, the peasants loved her. She would take her horse and go gallivanting through the villages, talking to them, helping where she could, just as if they were her equals." Lex's voice, as he reminisced, was almost fond.

Kara frowned a little, intrigued by the mysterious Luthor princess she hadn't even known about. _She sounds...like me. If the curse hadn't happened, would we ever have met? Would we have been friends?_

"The people loved her more than my mother," Lex said suddenly. "That was Lena's downfall. They feared my mother, hated her, cursed her very name. She never got more than a stony silence when she traveled through the kingdom. But if Lena was there, so were the cheering crowds, the flowers, the well-wishes. My mother knew they weren't for her. She knew Lena had eclipsed her- in beauty, in popularity, in everything, and she was driven mad with jealousy. Once she was queen, she made things as uncomfortable for Lena as she could, but nothing worked. One night she asked me if she thought Lena might try to steal the throne from her, with the people's support."

"But instead, the people supported you," M'gann said.

"That was later. And, I'll admit, they wouldn't have supported me if Lena had been there. She would have been their choice." Lex didn't seem bothered by the fact. "But she wasn't there, and I have a feeling magic played a part. Now that my mother felt her throne was threatened, I knew she'd go to any length to take Lena out of the equation. But I also knew that the people were restless and an uprising was coming, so I devised a plan. I told one of my most loyal advisors- a huntsman, actually- to take Lena somewhere far away, somewhere she'd be safe. Once my mother had been forced from power and she was no longer in danger, he'd bring her back."

"Conveniently enough, the crown would have been in your hands by then, too," Alex said.

"True, but that hardly matters, because she and the huntsman never returned. I don't know if he betrayed me or if the two of them met with some unfortunate accident during the journey, but I haven't seen either one of them since."

"How do you know magic was responsible?" J'onn asked. "How do you know your sister's still alive?"

"I don't. Not for certain, anyway. But there are rumors that she's in hiding somewhere, and a few villagers have said they've seen her. I know this- if she is in hiding, then something is keeping her there. We may have been close, but she always said I was too harsh with her precious commoners. She'd never have abandoned them to my rule if she could help it."

"So she opposes you," J'onn said. "And your people would choose her over you any day of the week. Why are you so desperate to find her, then? And don't say it's because she's your sister. I know you Luthors. You're only loyal to yourselves."

"Well, there may be some truth in that," Lex admitted. "So I'll be honest. I need Lena back because the people have noticed her absence, and they don't like it. I either find her, or risk implicating myself in her disappearance."

"What do you need us for?" Kara asked.

"It's simple. Like I said, the only reason Lena wouldn't have returned is if something's preventing her from doing so. And that something could only be magic. It may not be prevalent in our kingdom, but it still exists, and I fear my mother may have learned to make use of it." He smiled again, his eyes glittering. "I don't know how to fight magic. You do. That's the whole reason you're on this little quest of yours. So while you're roaming the countryside breaking curses and rescuing damsels in distress, I want you to add my sister to the list. Find her, or proof that she's dead, and bring it to me. You can take as long as you need; as long as they know I'm making an effort to find Lena, the people will be satisfied. That's all I ask of you. Say yes, and you're free to go. If you're successful, I'm willing to end hostilities between our nations, forget my rivalry with Kal. We'll never live as friends, but I'll consent to live as peaceful neighbors."

"How do you know I'll do it? How do you know I won't just ride out of here and forget about your sister as soon as I'm out of your sight?"

"You could. You could do that. But if you said yes, it'd be an agreement between royals. A treaty, of sorts. If you broke it, I'd have grounds to declare war on your beloved homeland. And with the queen in a family way, and your best knights off on that wild shoe chase I've heard about, I doubt even the dragon-slayer, powerful as he is, could stop me."

He was still smiling, but Kara swallowed hard. He was right. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. Kal wouldn't be able to resist an attack, not right now. If she broke her promise, she would doom her kingdom. _It's not like he's asking me to give up my own quest. Just...add something to it, that's all. Cat said we'd find the next part of the quest at the kingdom's western end. Maybe this is it. Maybe Princess Lena, wherever she is, is under the fourth curse. And even if she isn't, she's in trouble. I can't just leave her trapped because I despise her brother._

"What happens if the princess refuses?" J'onn's voice was hard and heavy with anger.

Lex's remained smooth, like honey and oil, but there was something dark and threatening underneath. He still didn't look at J'onn, only at Kara. "Then I doubt she'd like what happens to her friends," he said. "I'll start with the peasant boy-" he gestured to Winn, who shrank away from the words as if they were blows- "and I'll work my way up to you, Sir Knight. And by the time I'm finished making sure she regrets her decision, her noble cousin might very well find himself planning her funeral instead of her wedding."

Kara understood J'onn's hesitation. The Luthors could not be trusted, she knew that. More than likely there was something Lex wasn't telling them. More than likely he'd find some way to stab her in the back. But at least, once she was out of immediate danger from him, she'd have time to think about what he might do and prepare herself for it. She couldn't risk his awful threats coming true. She couldn't risk her friends getting hurt. And there was something about the tragic tale of the mysterious Luthor princess that made Kara want to find out more about her.

She took a deep breath and looked her mortal enemy in the eyes. "I'll do it," she said.

"I thought you would. So glad, Your Highness, that we've come to an agreement." His sinister smile spread slowly across his face, and his dark eyes glittered.

_You're a snake,_ Kara told him silently in her mind. _Just like Alex said. And maybe you've got me backed into a corner right now, but I know better than to trust you. One way or another, I'll find out what you're doing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have the first clues about Lena Luthor, our very own “fairest of them all.” We may not see her for a while yet, dear readers, but her fairy tale role, for all who were wondering, hast now been made clear. (The identity of the huntsman might be another thing to consider; might he also be someone we know?)
> 
> Lex Luthor, dear readers, is a devious joy to write. Is he really as good a brother as he seems? Can he be trusted? If not, what might his evil plot entail? The bard hopes thou didst enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it, and wouldst welcome thy comments. I shall return soon with Part the Twelfth.


	12. In Which The Quest Takes A Chilling Turn

Lex, once he had what he wanted, proved himself to be a charming host. Completely ignoring the angry, suspicious tension in the air, he ordered a sumptuous banquet prepared for his unwilling guests and then had them escorted to luxurious guest chambers. The next morning, as he had promised, he sent them on their way- but not before pressing a small, gold-framed portrait of his sister into Kara's palm. "Remember your promise," he said, smiling another of those terrible smiles that never reached his eyes. Kara didn't answer, tapping her heel against Mayarah's side and leaving the Luthor king behind her.

They had no idea where to head, but they all agreed on one thing- the sooner they were out of the Luthor kingdom, the better off they would all be. Worry hung in the air; instead of spreading out into their typical line, they rode bunched together, discussing their next move. Kara scrutinized the painting as they rode.

Lena looked nothing like Lex. She looked about Kara's age, maybe a little older. She wore a deep scarlet gown, her hands folded demurely in her lap, gazing regally ahead. She was just as Lex had described her- pale porcelain skin, hair as dark as night and lips that could put rubies to shame. But he hadn't mentioned her eyes, the most striking eyes Kara had ever seen. At first they looked pale green, but when you looked more closely you could see that one was more blue than green and the other was just the opposite. She looked happy, the ghost of a smile playing on her features, but there was a shadow of sadness somewhere in her face. Kara wondered why.

"I understand why you did it, Kara," J'onn said, interrupting her thoughts, "but it's a risky bargain all the same. The last time your cousin trusted a Luthor, Lex almost put a dagger in his back."

"I don't trust him any further than I can throw him," Kara said scornfully, tucking the painting into the pocket of her tunic. "I know there's something he's not telling us. But he was going to torture you, all of you, if I said no. I couldn't just let that happen. I had to do something."

"We'd better figure out something to do ourselves," Alex said. "Lex gave us no information on where we should even start looking. And who do we find first, this Luthor princess or the person who cursed Kara?"

"I'd rather find Lena first," Kara answered. "Until we find her I'll feel like Lex is looking over our shoulders. And if she's in danger, like Lex seems to think she is...my curse is over with. I'm not in any danger from it. Finding the person responsible can wait."

"Mmm, I wouldn't be too sure of that."

Kara jumped at the sound of the voice before she recognized it. A familiar figure in a white dress hovered beside the trail.

"Cat!" Kara cried. But the fairy looked first at M’gann.

"So they found you," she said, glancing from J'onn to M'gann with a knowing little smile.

M'gann flushed. "They did," she said softly, fiddling with the reins of her horse.

"Well, I'm glad of that, at least. You've been under that curse long enough." M'gann turned even redder, staring at the ground, but now Cat turned her attention to Kara.

"You're wrong about that, Your Highness. You're in danger from your curse just as Alex and M'gann are from theirs."

J'onn raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"The princess was cursed to sleep for a hundred years. She woke up seventy-six years early. And those seventy-six years don't just go away. Someday, princess, you'll fall asleep again, just like the first time."

Kara caught at the saddle to keep from falling. For a moment her head swam, and she gaped at the fairy, stunned by the revelation. After all this time, thinking she had had a close call but escaped the worst of the curse...it was almost too much to take in. Seventy-six years. The world had changed so much in just twenty-four. By the time she woke again, almost everyone she knew would be gone.

"How..." She swallowed hard and tried again. "How long do I have before that happens?"

Cat kept her face neutral, but there was a flash of sympathy in her green eyes. "I don't know. The elder fairies couldn't tell me that. But they told me it would likely be at least a month or two. Unless you can find the person who cursed you. Then you could either defeat them or persuade them to lift the rest of the curse."

"So we should do that," Alex said, "before we find the Luthor girl."

Cat shook her head. "No, actually. I knew you'd all be captured by that bald buffoon Lex Luthor, and I knew exactly what he'd ask of you. That's why I said the next part of your quest would be found at Kryptonia's western end. Princess Lena is the next part. Which, obviously, would mean she's the next person you need to find."

"But you just said Kara's going to fall asleep again," Winn said. "Shouldn't we make sure that doesn't happen first?"

"Naturally," Cat said. "But you don't need to _find_ the person who cursed Kara. That person's already come to you. And they'll come again."

"The black dragon," Kara whispered. Cat nodded.

"So you're saying we ought to search for the Luthor princess and let the dragon find us," M'gann said. "Two birds with one stone."

"Precisely. Although, if your goal is to find Princess Lena, you're going in the wrong direction. You're heading west. You ought to head north."

"North?" Kara asked. "What's north?"

Cat's steady green gaze never wavered. "Kryptonia's other enemy."

Jonn's eyes went wide. "No. No. Absolutely not. I won't allow it."

"You don't have a choice. Princess Lena is hidden from me somehow, and the few people who know where she is...they're clouded. I don't know who they are. But I know where they are, and that's north."

"It's far too dangerous!"

"More dangerous than a dragon? More dangerous than Lex wiping out the whole of Kryptonia?"

"She's the princess. I've sworn to keep her safe!"

"Enough!" Kara shouted. "Will someone just tell me what it is about going north that's so dangerous?"

There was a long silence, and then Alex sighed. "The North Kingdom," she said, "belongs to the Snow Queen."

"You mentioned her before. I don't think I've ever heard of her."

"You haven't," J'onn said. "She rose to power while you were asleep. She carved out a little kingdom for herself and she's been its sole ruler ever since."

"And she's our enemy?"

"Sometimes."

Kara blinked. "Sometimes? Why only sometimes?"

"Because the Snow Queen's under a curse, like it seems everyone is these days," Alex said. "Most of the time, she's a woman named Lady Samantha Arias, a good, gentle ruler. But sometimes she transforms into someone else, a tyrannical despot called Reign. Her entire kingdom becomes dark and bitterly cold, and no magic except her own can enter until she emerges as Samantha Arias again. That's why she's known as the Snow Queen. We never know when or why the change will take place, and it was too dangerous to maintain relations with her kingdom when we didn't know whether we'd be dealing with Samantha or Reign on any given day. So your cousin closed things off. Samantha understands, but Reign hates us for that."

"Could hers be the fourth curse?" Kara asked, looking at Cat. But the fairy shook her head.

"If someone doesn't want their curse broken," she said, "you can't break it for love or money. Simple as that."

"Samantha and her people don't mind Reign," J'onn explained. "Reign keeps the kingdom in Samantha's hands, and Samantha's one of the kindest queens in any kingdom. The people are willing to put up with a few days of darkness in order to have her ruling them the rest of the time. They're a small kingdom, with a small army. If Reign wasn't there, Samantha would never remain in power. She'd be overthrown in a week, and her people might find themselves suffering under someone whose darkness never fades."

"Like Lex," Winn pointed out.

"Even when Reign steps out of line- makes some unreasonable decree, has someone thrown into the dungeon- Samantha's daughter, Princess Ruby, can usually set things right before someone gets hurt," Alex continued. "I've met the princess, once or twice, before the borders were closed and before I was a frog. She's a lovely young lady. The people will have an even better queen in her someday. And, thankfully, she shows no signs of having the same curse as her mother."

"It's an odd arrangement, but it doesn't bother the people any," Cat finished. "So no, princess. Reign's curse is not one of the four you're destined to break."

_Which means Lena could still be the person who's under the fourth_ , Kara thought. But she kept those thoughts to herself. Out loud, she said, "From what you're telling me, it would only be dangerous to enter the North Kingdom if Samantha was Reign."

"Right," M'gann answered. "Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing if she'll be Reign when we arrive."

"And even if she wasn't, we have no idea how long it would take to find anyone with information on Princess Lena," J'onn added. "According to Cat-" he glanced in the direction of the fairy- "we only know that there is someone, or multiple someones, who know where the princess is, and they're in the North Kingdom. But we don't know who they are. By the time we locate them, Samantha could transform into Reign again. And if Reign knew the Kryptonian princess was in her kingdom, even Ruby couldn't save you from her wrath."

"But as I said," Cat interrupted, a slight edge to her voice, "you just don't have a choice. Princess Lena is part of your quest, Luthor or not, and to find her, you have to head north."

"And as I said," J'onn put in, "it's too dangerous. The king himself couldn't walk into the North Kingdom and come out alive."

"The king himself doesn't have to." Cat folded her arms across her chest, clearly not about to take no for an answer. "I can't make you do anything. I can't tell you why the Luthor princess is so important, only that she is. I can't tell you why you have to journey to the North Kingdom, only that you must. It's your decision whether or not to listen to me. But since I happen to be an immortal fairy, I'd suggest you do so."

A strained silence fell. "Maybe we should let Kara decide what's too dangerous or not," Winn said softly. "It's her quest, isn't it?"

After a pause, J'onn nodded. "Well, Your Highness?"

Kara bit her lip. "We've already faced danger," she said. "We're going to face more. We can't run from it. The only thing we can do is see this quest to the end, like we promised. But I'll make a compromise with you, J'onn. If we get to the North Kingdom, and Samantha is Reign, we'll turn back and seek out the black dragon first."

"I can accept that," J'onn said.

"Good, then that's settled." Cat clapped her hands together. "Alright, go on, all of you. I'd like a word with the princess, alone." She stepped close to Kara, seizing Mayarah's bridle as the others trotted down the path.

"Cat?" Kara questioned. "What is it?"

"I don't know," her fairy godmother answered. "A feeling. I didn't want to alarm the others, but something isn't right."

"About...what?"

"I don't know that either." Cat smiled ruefully. "Even fairies can't see everything. But things are not as they seem, Kara Zorel. Things are nothing like they seem." She took a deep breath. "There's a dark shadow hanging over your kingdom, princess. A hammer ready to fall. Find the Luthor princess. Break the four curses."

Her green eyes seemed to look through Kara's layers, straight into her soul. "And then, for the sake of everyone you love," she whispered, "hurry home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus the identity of the Snow Queen is revealed- but which side of her coin shall our intrepid travelers encounter? And what is the danger at home that our fairy godmother foresees? I wouldst love to have thine comments, and shalt return soon with Part the Thirteenth.


	13. In Which The Princess Learns The Nature Of The Beast

No one asked what it was that Cat had wanted to discuss with Kara, which she was grateful for, still reeling from the sudden revelations. The stakes had been raised. The price of failure was much higher. There was nothing to do but turn the horses northward and hope they weren't heading to their doom.

But now that they had a fixed goal in mind, something else to think about besides Lex and what he might be hiding, the mood of the group returned to something resembling normalcy. Winn peppered Alex with anxious questions about how dangerous the Snow Queen really was until finally Alex asked whether he'd be afraid of a butterfly if someone told him he should be, which immediately started the two of them bickering again. M'gann, who seemed far more comfortable with the group now than she had been at first, watched with a little smile on her face, and even despite the sobering developments of the morning Kara found herself able to smile too.

Only J'onn remained pensive and thoughtful, and Kara had a good guess why. She darted little, concerned glances at him through the course of the day, but held her tongue until they'd made camp for the night and enjoyed another of M'gann's delicious meals. Then she couldn't keep quiet any longer. The question burst out of her before she could stop it.

"Are you angry with me, J’onn?”

The knight looked at her in surprise, his brow furrowing, and Kara hurried to explain. "For saying we should head north, even though it's dangerous."

J'onn drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, tilting his head as if he were considering his words carefully. "No, Kara. No. I'm not angry. This is your quest, and I'll support whatever you feel is right. But I admit, the decision to go north, into the reach of Reign...it troubles me." He stared into the crackling fire for a long moment before he spoke again, and his eyes held an almost haunted look.

"I had time with Alex, before Maxwell Lord's curse," he said. "She's the best recruit I've ever had on the castle guard. And eventually things between us transcended that of a mentor and a student. Alex became, well, almost a daughter to me." He smiled at Alex across the flames, and she smiled back.

"And you, Kara," J'onn continued. "I didn't have as much time with you as I did with Alex, but since I joined you on this quest, you've become a daughter to me too. I consider you, all of you-" he glanced around the circle to include all four of his fellow travelers in the statement- to be my family. It's...it's a hard thing for me to think of my family being in danger. I've faced monsters like Reign before, and I...I lost much to them."

Kara and Alex exchanged glances, uncertain what the knight could be referring to. No one said anything, leaving it up to J'onn to decide if he wanted to say more. After a long pause, he cleared his throat and went on, his voice soft and sad and his eyes far away. "I had another family once," he said. "A wife and two daughters."

Alex looked startled. "I didn't know that."

"You wouldn't have. I never talked about it before now, and it was a long time ago, before I was ever your cousin's captain of the guard. Before I ever came to Kryptonia, in fact. We had a little manor in the countryside, there was a little village nearby...it was wonderful." His face hardened. "Until it wasn't."

He fell quiet again, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. M'gann reached out silently and put a hand on his arm. It was Alex who finally broke the silence. "What happened, J'onn?"

J'onn took another deep, shaky breath. "I don't know. I don't know...what it was. It was a monster, a hideous white...beast. Like a dragon, but worse. I saw its face. I looked into its eyes. There was a human somewhere within it. It knew exactly what it was doing." His voice was iron-hard. M'gann drew back, her eyes wide and frightened, lifting a hand to her mouth.

"I fought it," J'onn whispered. "I fought...with everything I had in me. But it wasn't enough. I couldn't save them." His voice broke. "When it was over, and the dust and the smoke cleared away, I was left standing, alone, in the ruins of what had once been my perfect, happy life. I'm one of the greatest knights in the kingdom...and I wasn't enough that day."

Kara felt tears burning behind her eyes, and blinked to hold them back. Winn stared at J'onn in shock, his eyes wide. M'gann had pulled further away from J'onn, both hands pressed over her mouth as silent tears streamed down her face.

"Those memories have haunted me ever since," J'onn said. "But I built a new life for myself. I put it behind me, and I did the best I could to move on. Being on this quest, with all of you...it's one of the greatest honors that I've ever had the privilege to be part of. And in the process, as I said, I've gained another family. So it's a hard thing to let my family walk headlong into a danger as great as the North Kingdom, especially knowing what...might happen. I worry I won't be enough to protect you. That I'll...fail again." He trailed off, his eyes still distant.

"You might," Alex said bluntly. Four sets of eyes turned to her in surprise, but she made no apology. "You might fail. There's a chance that none of us will ever see the end of this quest. But if we don't, it won't be because of you. You won't be at fault. I know, if that happens, you'll have done everything in your power to keep us safe...just like I know you did everything in your power to save your family that day."

J'onn smiled at her, running a hand over his face as if to steady himself. "Thank you, Alex. And thank you, all of you, for letting me explain myself. There's no getting around the fact that we must travel to the North Kingdom, but now you know why it troubles me."

"Of course we understand!" Kara cried. "We won't put ourselves in any more danger than we have to. And I, for one, trust you to get us out of it." Winn and Alex were quick to echo the sentiment.

M'gann, blinking rapidly, smoothed her hands over her skirt. Her voice shook a little. "Well," she said, "I should probably get started on the dishes." Gathering up the stack of bowls and spoons, she walked swiftly into the forest without a backward glance.

"I didn't think that would affect her so much," J'onn said softly. "I wonder if I reminded her of something, telling that story. I don't know much about her past; perhaps I brought up some less than pleasant memories." He looked remorseful, glancing after M'gann with worry in his eyes.

"I'm sure she knows you didn't mean anything by it," Kara said, getting to her feet. "I'll go talk to her." She set off almost at a run, catching up with M'gann by the side of a small trickle of a stream. The older woman's shoulders shook, and she lifted a hand to her face every once in a while to brush away her tears.

"M'gann?" Kara asked, kneeling down beside her and putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. She jumped with a little gasp, mustering a wan smile once she saw who it was.

"Oh! Kara, you startled me."

"J'onn's worried he's upset you somehow," Kara explained. "You left so quickly...what is it? What's wrong?"

"He did upset me." The words came out like a sob. "But he had every right, every right in the world to do it."

Kara's forehead crinkled, but she said nothing, waiting for M'gann to explain herself.

"There was something between us," M'gann said softly. "I know there was. Something special. And I had started to hope that J'onn might be the one to break my curse."

"But why wouldn't he be? He loves you, M'gann!"

"Maybe. Maybe he does, right now. But as soon as he finds out about this curse and what it truly means...that will all be over."

"What are you talking about?"

M'gann clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms. "The beast. The one he was talking about. I know what it is. My former husband, the one who put the curse on me to begin with...he and his band of ne'er-do-wells used to take that form to commit their terrible crimes without being recognized. In all likelihood it's thanks to one of them that J’onn lost everything that day."

"But you're not one of them. You're not like that."

"I wasn't. And I don't want to be, ever, but it's out of my hands. That's the curse. It doesn’t break with true love. It's meant to take true love away from me."

"I don't understand."

M'gann sighed. "The only love I've ever had comes from the way I look. No one ever looks beyond what they see as another pretty face. No one ever sees who I am beneath that. So the curse promised that if I ever found someone who did...someone who loved me for who I am instead of what I look like...I would be turned into a hideous beast the moment that person gave me true love's kiss. If they love me in spite of that, I'll regain my human form. But if they don't...if seeing me that way is too terrible for them...I'll remain the beast forever."

Kara couldn't hold back a little gasp, stunned by the cruelty of whoever could cast such a curse. At least with her own, had things gone the way the magic-wielder had planned, she would have had someone by her side at the end of the ordeal. But for M'gann, she would experience true love only to have it snatched away from her.

"That's why I begged Cat to hide me away in that abandoned castle," M'gann whispered. "I thought that being on my own would be better than loving someone only to lose them later. But then I met J'onn, and I started to hope that maybe he might be the one to break the curse. He's so brave, so honorable, so kind...I couldn't imagine him rejecting me for something like that." She broke down again. "Until tonight. Because the moment he kisses me for the first time, I'll look just like the monster that took everything away from him. And no one could love that. No one."

"Oh, M'gann." Kara reached out, taking the other woman's hand in hers. "I'm so sorry!"

"You can't tell him." M'gann looked up at her, eyes pleading. "You can't tell anyone, not yet. I couldn't bear it...if he knew."

"Promise me you'll tell him soon," Kara said. "He loves you, M'gann. Anyone can see that. He loves you, and I doubt there’s been a curse invented yet that could ever stop that. He may just surprise you when the time comes. But don't make him find out unprepared. Tell him what you told me. Tell him the whole story."

After a moment, M'gann nodded. "I'll tell him, Kara. I promise. Just...let me do it when the time is right. Please."

"Your secret's safe with me," Kara said. "Come on. We should head back to camp before the others wonder what's become of us." She kept her tone light and free of concern, but inwardly she worried. She couldn't imagine J'onn reacting negatively to the tragic tale she had just been told, but if the reality came crashing down suddenly, without a warning, it might be different. For something as terrible as the secret M'gann was keeping, could there ever be a 'right time' for the truth?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus, dear readers, M’gann’s curse is revealed. Thy humble storyteller apologizes for all these emotionally heavy chapters; we have a few more of them before we shall return to fun, adventure, and the addition of another traveler. I wouldst greatly appreciate thine comments, and shall return soon with Part the Fourteenth.


	14. In Which A Great Danger Grows Greater

Much to Kara's relief, the conversation by the brook seemed to have given M'gann some hope. She took J'onn aside when they returned to the campsite, quietly reassuring him that he hadn't upset her while still keeping quiet about the curse. J'onn seemed not to mind at all, wrapping his arms around her comfortingly. Kara watched from a distance, reassured that the two of them would be alright.

After that, things resumed normalcy much more quickly as they neared the North Kingdom. J'onn seemed comforted that they understood his reservations, and M'gann, still made an effort to keep the spark alive between them, though Kara couldn’t help but notice the shadow of pain that crossed her face every so often. Alex was still more cynical, and Winn more anxious, than they had been at the beginning of things, but that had been the case since the attack from the black dragon. And Kara, for her part, was just happy to have her old, lighthearted band of adventurers back, no matter what might lie further down the road.

There was little forest left along the trail now, only sharp cliffs and spires of pale gray rock with a scrubby pine tree here and there. The closer they came to the North Kingdom, the colder the air seemed to grow, even though it was still summer. Kara hoped that was only the nature of the country they were traveling through, and not a sign that they would find themselves facing Reign when they reached their destination.

"It's Midsummer's Day," Alex observed one morning, so early that they were still blinking the sleep from their eyes. "Do you think the fairies' rule about appearances applies to their godchildren?"

"I don't know," J'onn answered. "Even the best scholars in Kryptonia know little about the fairies. I wasn't even aware of the fact that anyone besides royalty could have a fairy godmother."

"Well, I hope it doesn't apply," Winn said. "As unnerving as Cat is, I don't like the idea of heading to the North Kingdom without her."

"If we need her, she'll be there," Kara said, with more certainty than she felt. "I don't think Cat's the type to listen to anybody's rules but her own."

Suddenly J'onn raised his head, his eyes going wide. "Speaking of Cat," he said, "I think one of her warnings may have just come true."

Kara heard it too. Distant thunder, rapid and sharp. She looked up as the unmistakable shadow passed over the sun.

"Well, looks like the dragon's found us!" Alex shouted. "J'onn, what do we do?"

But there was no time for J'onn to answer. The dragon swooped low, turning sharply as it did so. It had undoubtedly spotted them. Its green eyes fastened on Kara, but there was a different look in them this time. The uncertain, almost tortured expression was gone. Now the dragon's eyes were hard and cruel and determined. And yet they still seemed familiar.

"I know you," Kara whispered. "How do I know you?"

The beast answered her with a stream of green fire. Two of the horses reared, and the rest threw up their heads, ears flicking back and forth. The dragon had learned from the last fight; it didn't land, instead flying over them and using the flame as its weapon. Kara had to admit that it was an effective one. She backed Mayarah a few steps, trying to calm the mare. The dragon, unable to check its speed, would have to circle back before it could attack again. At least they had that little bit of time.

"We can't fight it like this!" J'onn shouted. "Until she lands we can't do anything, unless Cat wants to send us a squadron of archers!"

"She's coming back around!" M'gann cried. "What do we do?"

J'onn gritted his teeth. " _Run_!"

No one needed further urging. Wheeling the horses, they kicked the animals into a gallop, feeling the heat of the dragon's second blast on their heels. Kara crouched down low over Mayarah's neck, whispering encouragements into the horse's ear. "Come on, girl, come on. You can do this."

"We need cover!" Alex shouted.

J'onn nodded. "Make for the rocks! If we get somewhere she can't fit, we might just get out of this!"

_Maybe_ , Kara thought. _But how are we supposed to find out who cursed me if the only clue to that person's identity is trying to kill us?_

She was going too fast to think now, her heart pounding too hard for her to focus on more than staying on the horse and avoiding the searing streams of fire. The dragon's strange, high-pitched roar echoed painfully in her ears, and she winced, driving her heels into her horse's side again.

"There!" J'onn bellowed, pointing to a small cave in the side of a cliff face, with an opening just tall enough for the horses to fit through it. Kara jerked Mayarah's reins until she felt the horse turn. The cave loomed just ahead of her, offering shelter from the dragon's fury. She saw Winn's horse duck inside, nearly scraping Winn from the saddle in the process and followed closely by M'gann. The dragon roared again, releasing another fountain of flame, and Mayarah whinnied in pain and fear.

_Just...a little...further._

Finally, finally, the cave was in reach. Kara put a hand on Alex and leaned down even lower on the golden mare's neck, just barely managing to duck into the safety of the cave. Like Winn and M'gann, she dismounted swiftly, leading the horse to the back of the cave in the hope of escaping the range of the dragon's fire.

And then she heard M'gann scream. "J'onn! _J'onn_!"

Kara whirled around just in time to see J'onn's horse gallop into the cave, its eyes wide with fear. 

Its rider lay on the ground outside the cave, completely exposed to the dragon's attack.

"No!" The word burst from her mouth before she could stop it, and she threw out her hand as if she could possibly change what was happening. J'onn struggled to his feet, drawing his sword, but Kara saw the way he moved and knew he was injured. He wouldn't stand a chance against this creature.

The dragon screeched again, this time with a note of triumph in its voice. Kara was already moving, drawing her dagger and charging toward the entrance of the cave with M'gann close at her heels. She saw the dragon raise its head, preparing to launch another blast. There was no way they could reach the entrance of the cave in time. And even if they could, their weapons were useless so long as the dragon remained airborne.

J'onn knew it. Of course he knew it. This wasn't his first bout with a dragon.

But that didn't make it any less terrifying when the mouth of the cave was suddenly blocked off by the emerald inferno released outside.

Kara screamed, heard M'gann scream too. If J'onn, wounded as he was, had been caught by that unnatural, magical blaze, there was no telling what could happen. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move, desperately trying to stop her mind from conjuring up the terrible images that immediately invaded her thoughts. The fire faded, and the dragon's shadow passed by again, but it would be back.

M'gann was running now, sprinting for the entrance of the cave, calling J'onn's name, and Kara followed her, wanting to know what waited for them outside and yet desperately wanting to avoid the answer. Except for the beating of the dragon's wings, far away but coming closer, and the crackling of a few still-burning patches of flame, there was no sound.

Until a low groan broke the silence, followed a moment later by J'onn's tense, pain-tightened voice. "It's alright, M'gann, I'm alright. She hit my leg a bit with that last blast is all."

M’gann’s face collapsed in relief, and Kara knew her own expression, not to mention Winn’s and Alex’s, had to look similar. “Can you walk?” she called out.

“Not well. Don’t...don’t leave the cave. I managed to get behind a rock, so I’m safe from the fire. They’re not sight hunters, and she can’t smell anything but smoke with all this flame, so she’ll give up after a while. Dragons aren’t patient beasts.”

The beat of the dragon’s wings were closer now. “J’onn?” M’gann called. “Kara and I are going to get to the back of the cave to make sure we’re out of the fire’s range. We’ll come back as soon as she leaves. _Don’t. Move_.” The last two words came out as separate sentences; M’gann’s jaw was tight, and she was clearly fighting the desire to run outside and protect the man she loved. Kara put a comforting hand on her arm as they hurried to rejoin Winn, Alex and the horses. They sheltered together behind a heap of boulders, Kara with Alex on her shoulder and Winn clutching the horses’ reins as if his life depended on it. Thankfully the animals were keeping quiet. As long as the dragon’s fire couldn’t reach to the back of the cave, they’d be safe. She only hoped she could say the same for J’onn.

The ground shook as the dragon landed. Kara’s heart was pounding loud enough that she was sure the creature could hear it. No one made a sound. They could hear the dragon’s deep, heaving breaths, the angry rumble in her throat as she searched fruitlessly for them. But her own flame had worked against her. The ground was scorched, and there was, as J’onn had said, nothing but smoke in the air, choking out every other scent. Now there was nothing to do but wait...but for how long?

It was only a few minutes, but it felt like they stayed there for an eternity. The dragon grew more irritated as her search continued to yield no results, tossing her head and making a low growling sound that rose, every so often, into a keening sort of shriek. But finally, finally, her limited patience wore out. With one last frustrated roar, she rose into the sky and vanished over the horizon.

They stayed where they were for a few minutes longer, making sure the creature was truly gone. It was M’gann who rose to her feet first, with Kara close behind and Winn bringing up the rear. M’gann fell to her knees at J’onn’s side, almost sobbing in relief. J’onn caught her hand and held it to his cheek, and she allowed herself to lean into the embrace for a moment before her businesslike nature took over. She drew back, barking orders with the efficiency of a soldier who had seen a hundred battles. J’onn, though his face was drawn with pain, watched her with a proud smile.

“Winn, go through the saddlebags and pull out any medicines you can find. Alex, you know a little about herbs, tell him which ones I’ll need so he can hand them to me. Kara, there should be a canteen on my saddle; I’m going to need cold water. And you might as well get a fire started. We’re not going any further today.”

They scurried to obey as M’gann gingerly examined the long, angry red burn on J’onn’s calf. After a moment of poking and prodding, she exhaled. “It looks worse than it is. You’ll be fine in a week or so, if I can keep it from getting infected.”

“It certainly _feels_ worse than it is,” J’onn said through a grimace. “I hate fire. Magical fire is even worse.”

“We’re just lucky that thing didn’t do worse,” Alex said. “We’re going to have to be more careful. Obviously whoever cursed Kara isn’t willing to let us reach the North Kingdom.“

The North Kingdom. Kara had nearly forgotten their destination in the chaos of the morning, but the mention of it brought a new worry to her mind. The North Kingdom had always been a risky venture. J’onn’s wounded state only doubled the danger. Could they afford to wait until he healed to continue the quest, when she could fall back asleep at any moment? Could they afford to go on with him injured? 

One thing was certain: with only two capable fighters left unharmed, it would be near suicide to go any further into the reach of Reign. But Kara wasn’t sure they had a choice. And even if they did, she had no idea which was the right one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankfully, dear readers, this shall be the last of our emotionally dramatic chapters for a while. The next chapter returns to the original fun and lightheartedness you read this story for, and the chapter after that shall introduce a new player in this convoluted game, one whom many of you have been anxious to see...
> 
> And forgive thy humble storyteller if this chapter was chaotic. Fight scenes are the bane of the bard’s existence. But I wouldst still appreciate thine comments, and shall return soon with Part the Fifteenth!


	15. In Which Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

In the end there was little to do but go on. J'onn's injury was a setback, but the return of Kara's curse was a ticking clock, and they had to make their best efforts to outrun it. And staying in the same place put them at risk of another attack from the dragon, something none of them had any desire to face. Though there was plenty of uncertainty surrounding the decision to continue to the North, it was the only decision that could be made.

M'gann was firm, however, on her declaration that they should stay where they were for the rest of that day, and after the chaotic events of the morning, no one really minded. Once M'gann had finished tending to J'onn's wound and reassured them all that, yes, he would be alright in a few days' time, Kara actually found herself enjoying the chance to rest. In no time at all they had a fire started, helping to offset some of the unusual chilliness that had been growing since they turned north. J'onn leaned against a boulder with his injured leg propped up, M'gann keeping a close eye on him as she set to work preparing a meal. After untacking the horses and letting them graze a little ways off from the campsite, Kara gathered up a handful of stones and drew a grid in the dirt for a makeshift game of checkers, challenging first Winn and then Alex (although Winn had to move Alex's pieces for her).

The day passed quietly and quickly. With the help of a map, Kara was able to determine that they would reach the border of the North Kingdom in two days. She pressed Alex and J'onn for any more information they might have on the Snow Queen, any small detail that might help to decrease the risk. But there wasn't much that they hadn't already told her; the North Kingdom had been all but isolated for years. She was as prepared to face Reign as anyone could be, although she still hoped that it would be Samantha they met when they reached their destination.

"Even once we get to the North Kingdom," she said as darkness was falling, "how do we know where to start looking for whoever this person is who knows about Princess Lena? It's not like we can search the entire kingdom."

"With any luck, we'll have help from Cat," Alex answered. "And if we don't, we'll just have to find some way to ask questions without raising anyone's suspicions."

"We'll find a way, Kara," J'onn assured her. "We always do."

They lapsed into silence after that. Since the attack from Lex, they had started taking turns to stand guard at night. Tonight it was Alex who stationed herself on a branch to watch for danger- she probably made a better sentinel than anyone else, Kara thought with a smile, since her frog form was too small to see in the dark. With Alex on guard, any possible invader wouldn't know they were being watched until it was too late. And it gave Alex something to do, something that made her feel like she was helping the group.

Kara burrowed down beneath her blanket, fishing the portrait of the Luthor princess from her pocket and holding it up to the last fading starlight. She had no idea what intrigued her so much about the missing princess, and she had no idea why finding Lena was so important according to Cat, but she couldn't deny that she felt a connection. Finding Lena, like embarking on the quest, was just something she had to do.

_Now if only I had any idea how to do it._

* * *

By the time they reached the edge of the North Kingdom, it was hard to remember that the rest of the world was in the middle of a bright, cheerful summer. They hardly saw the sun, and the wind was so cold that it felt more like autumn. Not even the pine trees were left now, nothing but bare grey rock. Some of the mountains still had snow on the peaks.

"We've crossed the border," J'onn said on the second day. "We'll reach the capital city by nightfall. If we're going to find answers about Lena, I'd say we'll find them there."

"So what's our plan once we get there?" Alex asked. "If a pack of strangers shows up asking questions about a lost princess, it's bound to raise some eyebrows. We're going to have to be a little more delicate than that."

"The first thing to do is figure out which queen we're dealing with," M'gann put in. "Reign, or Samantha. From what I've heard, Samantha bears Kryptonia no ill will, so if she's in control right now we could just go right to the palace, explain who we are and enlist her help. That would be the easier option. But if we're dealing with Reign, that obviously wouldn't be safe."

"And like I promised," Kara said, "if Reign is in command when we reach the capital, we'll turn around."

But J'onn was shaking his head. "I won't hold you to that, Kara, not anymore. I had hoped the attack from the dragon in the dark might be an isolated incident. It's clear now that that isn't the case. Whoever cursed you is going to send that beast again, so there's no need to waste time looking for them. Until the dragon returns, we'll focus on finding this mysterious Luthor princess."

"Well, I would hope so,” a new voice declared.

Winn and M'gann startled, but by now Kara knew that voice, and her face lit up. "Cat! You're here! But what about the Midsummer's Day rule?"

"That rule only applies to idiot mortals who have no business seeking fairies out," the fairy said, swooping down to hover gracefully in front of the horses. "My own mortal godchildren are quite another story. And even if it wasn't, do you really think some ancient edict on a dust-covered scroll somewhere is going to stop me from doing anything I want? Because if you think that, you don't know me very well."

"I suppose your presence means we're at another critical crossroads," J'onn said.

"No, actually, it means that I don't want to see any of you get yourselves killed, which is the likely result of walking straight into Reign's kingdom with you injured, Sir Knight."

Kara drew in a sharp breath. "So Reign _is_ in charge right now."

"She's not, but she will be before the week is out. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't realize that yourself. Does summer usually look like this?" Cat swept an arm out to indicate the barren landscape.

"I was afraid of that," J'onn said. "Well, if this Luthor princess is as important as you say she is, I assume you have some sort of idea how we can find her safely."

"Of course I do. Your timing is impeccable, actually. It's Princess Ruby's birthday, and her mother's planned quite a celebration. She's finally opening her kingdom back up, and she's doing it in style. Three nights' worth of royal balls, starting the day after tomorrow, with every noble from here to Metropolis in attendance. And if there's someone who knows where your missing Luthor is, they would more than likely be among the nobles. It's a golden opportunity."

"So you want us to go to the party," Kara said.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. That would be disastrous. Kryptonia isn't one of the kingdoms that Samantha's opened up to. And a good thing too, with Reign simmering so close under the surface. No, Kara. You'd do well to stay as far from the palace as possible. No one must know that you, any of you, hail from Kryptonia."

Kara's brow furrowed. "But if we can't go to the palace, how are we supposed to find the person who knows where to find Lena?"

"Well, it wouldn't take all of you to find them. All you really need to do is have one person infiltrate the party, someone who wouldn't be recognized. It'd be a simple enough matter to ask questions about Lena after that, under the guise of court gossip. "Have you heard about the Lost Princess, oh, really, what have you heard-" that type of thing. It would hardly even raise an eyebrow."

"Normally I'd suggest Alex for that," Kara said. "But that wouldn't work, for obvious reasons. J'onn's hurt, and I can't risk being recognized-"

"M'gann can't risk that, either," Cat interrupted. "Someone might remember her from her high-society days." She crossed her arms over her chest, an impish smile playing over her face. "Well, that just leaves one, doesn't it?"

Almost in unison, they all turned to look at the person she meant. For a moment Winn just stood there, clearly confused, and then he seemed to realize what Cat was suggesting. His face paled. " _Me_? Oh, no. No. Absolutely not."

"I second that," Alex said. “This is not a good idea.” But Cat waved a hand in dismissal.

"Oh, come now. All you have to do is act like you belong there, have a good time and work in a question or two here and there. It's hardly even dangerous!"

"Except for the part where you want me to sneak into the palace of a woman who could transform into a magical tyrant at any moment!"

"Cat's right, Winn," J'onn added. "You're the only one of us who wouldn't be recognized."

"I won't be recognized because I'm a commoner! Which means I'll never even make it into the palace anyway!"

"Nonsense. I'm an all-powerful fairy. Disguising you will be as simple as picking daisies. No one will even guess that you're not royalty."

Cat may have intended the words to be reassuring, but Winn's eyes went even wider. "You want me to _impersonate royalty?_ Do you have any idea what could happen if I'm caught?"

"So don't get caught," Cat said with a shrug, as if the answer were obvious.

Winn stared at her in open-mouthed horror for a moment. "No. No. No, you're crazy. I can't..." Suddenly he turned to Kara, eyes pleading. "Please, Kara, tell them this is insane. I can't do this! You know I can't!"

"Actually, Winn," Kara said, trying to hold back a smile at his obvious panic, "I think you're the only person who _can_ do this."

" _What_? You're supposed to be on my side!"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Alright, look. Kara's right, you're the only person who can do this. So I'll go with you. I can hide in a corner or something, where no one will notice me, and I'll keep an eye on you from there. It's not like I'll be able to do much if things do go downhill, but if it makes you feel better, so be it."

Winn nodded vigorously, obviously missing the hint of sarcasm in Alex's voice, but he still didn't look entirely at ease with the idea. "Are you absolutely sure there's no other way?" he asked, putting his hands behind his head in the way he did when he was nervous.

"Well, we won't force you into anything," J'onn said, "but right now I really don't see any other option."

"Come on, Winn," Kara encouraged. "Cat and Alex will make sure nothing goes wrong. It might even be fun!"

Winn bit his lip, and then, slowly, he nodded. "It doesn't look like I really have a choice, does it?"

"We do have another problem, though," M'gann spoke up. "Winn, even if Cat can make you look the part, you don't exactly...act it. No offense intended, but I've been around plenty of royals in my time, and you don't really have that way about you."

"Mmm, she's right about that," Cat said, looking Winn up and down with a critical gaze. "Well, it's a good thing the first of the balls doesn't start until the day after tomorrow."

"Why is that a good thing?" Kara asked. Cat glanced back at her, eyes twinkling.

"Because, if Winn's going to masquerade as a prince, that gives the rest of you a day to teach him how to be one."

A silence fell over the group as they took in the fairy's statement. It was Alex who broke that silence, with a long, exaggerated sigh.

"I have a very strong feeling," she said, "that we are all going to profoundly regret this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, a return to lightheartedness and fun. Our favorite little hobbit has been somewhat neglected lately, with everyone else having their emotional chapters, and thus he finally gets his well-deserved part to play. (Although just how well he’ll play it is a matter of some debate). I shall return soon with Part the Sixteenth!


	16. In Which Creating Royalty Is Not An Easy Task

The next day would be one of the most enjoyable days since the quest had begun, for Kara at least. But it began in quite an unexpected way.

  
 _Clang_!

  
Jolted out of a sound sleep, Kara sat up quickly, rubbing her eyes. "Wha...what happened? Where's the fire?"

  
"There isn't one," Cat said, standing in the center of the campsite with a sizable brass gong in her hand. She waved her other hand, and the instrument vanished. "But it's time you were up. There's no time to waste today. Come on, chop-chop."

  
She arched an eyebrow in the direction of Winn, who sat blinking blearily, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Especially," she said, "if we're going to make royalty out of...that."

  
She turned, extending one finger as if it was a magic wand. There was a bright flash, and a table appeared out of thin air, groaning under the weight of a breakfast feast as extravagant as any that Kara might have had back in her cousin's palace. "Help yourselves," Cat said. "We've got a long day ahead of us."

  
Kara was on her feet in an instant, remembering at the last second to grab Alex. "Gangway! I smell potstickers!" Winn wasn't far behind her, and M'gann followed at a slower pace with J'onn leaning on her shoulder. Cat, for her part, sat down on a boulder, sipping delicately at a cup of golden liquid that, if Kara had to guess, was whatever fairies drank in lieu of alcohol.

  
The food was as delicious as Kara had expected magical food to be, and it replenished itself as they ate. When they were finished Cat clapped her hands, and the whole feast, the table included, shimmered into nothingness as if it had never been there.

  
"Now," Cat said, dusting her hands together briskly, "where's the man of the hour?"

  
Looking more than a little uncomfortable with the whole situation, Winn stepped into the center of the campsite, twisting his hands together nervously and shifting from one foot to the other. "Stop that," Cat scolded. "Princes don't fidget."

  
She clapped her hands again, and another strange set-up appeared- an ornate full-length mirror and, off to the side, three soft-looking velvet chairs. "The rest of you might as well make yourselves comfortable," she said, snapping her fingers to create a footstool so J'onn could keep his injured leg up. "This might take some time. And, Alex, I'll need your help when we're done here."

  
"My help," Alex said, looking only mildly surprised. "Of course. With what, exactly?"

  
"In due time, in due time. Winslow, will you please stop hunching your shoulders? I'm your fairy godmother, not an ogre; try to at least act like you've got a little confidence. And haven't you ever made the acquaintance of a hairbrush before?"

  
"Poor Winn," Alex said, keeping her voice low so that only Kara could hear. "Cat's not going easy on him, is she?"

  
Kara watched as the fairy circled Winn, glancing him over critically while Winn shied away from her, looking more and more rattled. "No, she isn't," she agreed. "And you're having too much fun watching this, Alex."

  
Alex smirked wickedly. "Maybe."

  
Finally, Cat finished her pacing, obviously less than impressed. "Well," she said, with a dubious look at Winn's rather shabby clothing, "you certainly...prefer to make an understatement. Never mind, I'll fix that. I just have to recall what the fashions were like the last time I visited a mortal kingdom. Of course we can't have anything that looks too Kryptonian, and I'll probably have to modify it some. Most princes aren't as vertically challenged."

  
Winn bristled. "I am _not_ vertically challenged!"

  
Cat waved a hand dismissively. "Oh please, you could pass for a misplaced elf." Kara had to work to hide a giggle, and Alex proved herself entirely incapable of holding back a snort. Even J'onn and M'gann passed a hand over their mouths as if they were erasing their smiles.

  
Without warning, Cat snapped her fingers again. Suddenly Winn was dressed, not in his typical plain clothes, but in a long red velvet robe that spilled from his shoulders to the ground, edged with black and white fur. A heavy gold chain hung over it, and an enormous golden crown perched on top of his dark hair.

"Too much," all four spectators said at the same time.

  
"Quite." Cat flicked her hand, and the gaudy outfit disappeared. "After all, you're trying not to be noticed. We need something simple."

For the better part of an hour the cycle repeated- Cat inventing something new, the others commentating on it, and Winn getting more and more nervous.

  
The black and gold silk tunic? "It's a ball, not a funeral," Alex said.

  
The orange shirt with blue embroidery? "What happened to not being noticed?" J'onn asked. "You can see that from a mile away."

  
The brown shirt with absolutely no decoration? "Too drab," M'gann said. "That's trying too _hard_ not to be noticed, which defeats the purpose." 

  
Finally, after outfit number twenty-six, Cat poured herself her third glass of whatever she was drinking and tried again. This outfit was unassuming, but not too much so- gray pants, a black shirt and a pale blue jacket, with a simple silver circlet instead of a crown. 

  
Kara clapped her hands. "That's it! Winn, you look wonderful!"

  
"I _feel_ ridiculous," Winn protested, but Kara could tell by the pink tint in his cheeks that he was pleased.

  
"It's alright," Alex said. "But you're still short."

  
Winn glared at her, and then happened to glance down at his feet. Instantly his eyes went wide, and he grabbed for the mirror as if he might fall at any moment. " _Why_ are my shoes made of glass?"

  
"Well, I've been doing this for almost an hour, I'm bound to get a few things wrong," Cat said irritably. "But the fairies have been wearing glass shoes for years. You'll be alright. They're actually quite comfortable."

  
"I wouldn't know, I'm afraid to put any weight on them!"

  
"Oh, don't be such a ninny." Cat flicked her hand again, and the mirror vanished. "Well, onto the next task, then. Alex, this is where I need you."

  
She extended her finger like a wand again, and another table materialized. This one, however, was far more formal, set with sparkling golden dishes, elegant crystal goblets and more gleaming silver forks and spoons than Kara could count. "Now that we've got you properly disguised, Winslow, we need to make sure you can actually play your role convincingly. It'd be a shame to reveal yourself due to some accidental breach of etiquette. Normally logic would suggest I enlist Kara to help with that, but, well, you've never exactly fit the usual mold of princesshood, Kara dear. As your lady-in-waiting, Alex at least understands the social graces, even if she isn't really known for putting them into practice." Cat smoothed her skirt, her wings unfurling behind her. "It's a simple enough task, Alex. I'm sure you'll be a suitable teacher. Enjoy yourselves, the five of you; there are a couple of small matters I need to attend to, but I'll be back later tonight. And then, Winslow, we'll see about your dancing."

  
Winn froze. "My what?"

  
"Oh, this I can do," Alex said, a sly glint in her eyes. "Come on then, Your Highness. We've got work to do."

  
"Like I said, Alex, you're enjoying this too much," Kara whispered.

  
Alex grinned. "I most certainly am."

* * *

Kara wouldn't have thought it possible, but Alex somehow managed to be even more merciless than Cat. Though the rest of them enjoyed the magical meal, watching the goings-on in amusement, Alex hardly gave Winn a moment's peace once they'd all taken their seats, managing by some miracle to be far more intimidating than a five-inch frog should have been.

  
Although, if Kara was being completely honest, she did have her work cut out for her. It hadn't been as noticeable during their simple meals on the trail, but when he was surrounded by finery it was obvious that Winn was out of place. Clearly his stepfamily's luxurious living hadn't rubbed off on him.

  
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were raised by cave trolls!" Alex shouted in exasperation. "For the fifth time, sit up straight. Do not slurp the soup- no, that's the dessert spoon- Winn, I swear, if you don't stop fiddling with the tablecloth-" 

  
And so it went. Kara couldn't help her smile, even though she did feel a little sorry for Winn. She remembered all too well having the same lessons from her mother as a little girl, and they had gone just about as well as Winn's were.

  
But by the end of the meal, he was at least starting to catch on. "Finally," Alex said. "Your stepmother threw enough parties; I would have thought you'd have _some_ idea how nobles act."

  
"Um, Alex, I ate in the kitchen. By myself. And I usually only had a few minutes to spare before somebody was screeching my name again, so no, learning the proper way to manage a fish fork was not exactly my priority."

  
"Well, you'd better make it a priority tomorrow, because you can't afford to make a mistake. We've got to find the Luthor girl."

  
"Maybe you should take this with you," Kara offered, pulling the small painting of Lena from her pocket and pressing it into his hand. "Don't go around showing it to everyone, of course, but if you find somebody who seems like they might know something, it could come in handy."

  
"That took longer than I thought," Alex commented, glancing up at the sky. "We've probably only got an hour or two before Cat gets back."

  
Winn shuddered. "She can take as long as she wants for all I care."

  
"Nervous about your dancing?" Kara teased.

  
"My dancing is dismal. I'm not exaggerating."

  
He wasn't. No sooner had Cat returned (announcing her arrival, and scaring the five mortal travelers almost out of their wits, by conjuring a full orchestra of instruments that played while floating in midair without any musicians in sight), then Kara learned the truth of his words firsthand. Cat was busy supervising the instruments, and both J'onn and Alex were out of commission, which left Kara as Winn's dancing partner. It was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience.

  
"Sorry," Winn said for the eighteenth time, after stepping on her foot for the seventh. 

  
Kara did her best to produce a smile that wasn't a grimace. "It's...fine. You're doing fine. I still have three functional toes left."

  
Winn, however, wasn't convinced. "I'm terrible at this, aren't I?" he said. "I'm not cut out to be a royal, even for just three nights. I'm going to mess this up."

  
"No, you're not," Kara reassured him. "You know what? Don't worry so much about being a royal. Just be you. That's all I wanted when I was growing up at court, for someone to be real with me. Not so proper and stuffy all the time. Of course, you should keep up the act well enough that no one suspects you, but you don't have to be perfect. All you have to do is ask a couple questions and have a good time."

  
"I'll try," Winn said, and Kara smiled.

  
The smile quickly turned into a wince. "Ow. It's alright, Winn, I still have two toes that work."

  
Finally, as the sun was going down and Winn was starting to show a little bit of progress, Cat clapped her hands. The instruments vanished in a discordant blast, and she put a hand on her hip. "That's enough for today," she announced. "I wouldn't call you every inch a prince, Winslow, but you're not entirely hopeless. Get some sleep, and practice again in the morning. See if you can make it through a minuet without mangling something, or someone, as the case may be. I'll be back for you tomorrow night, when the first ball begins."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thy humble storyteller didst very much enjoy writing this chapter. While the plot is important, 'tis for lighthearted fun like this that I began spinning this tale. And we are not through with the fun just yet- the next chapter starts another plot thread and introduces another familiar face, one whom many of you have been waiting to see. It is mine sincerest hope that this chapter is as enjoyable to read as it was to write, and shall return soon with Part the Seventeenth!


	17. In Which The Travelers Meet Old Enemies And A New Ally

True to her word, Cat returned the next evening as dusk was falling. This time, however, she didn't just appear. She arrived in a glistening white coach drawn by six white horses, with two footmen standing on the back of it and a coachman in a powdered wig holding the reins.

  
"What in the..." J'onn shook his head. "Has she gone mad? Who are these people?"

  
"They aren't people," Cat answered, stepping gracefully from the carriage. "And I'm perfectly sane, Sir Knight. They won't spill any secrets. The coach is a pumpkin, the horses are mice and the coachman and footmen are lizards. I just did a little fairy magic to suit our purposes tonight. Oh, and speaking of which, I can't permanently enchant living things, so the spell will wear off around midnight. Unless you feel like making some very awkward explanations, Winslow, you should probably be back here by then."

  
"Midnight," Winn repeated, swallowing hard. "Right. Well, I guess I should be going then." He took a step forward. but Kara put out a hand to stop him. Throwing her arms around him, she squeezed him in a tight hug.

  
"Remember what I said," she whispered. "You can do this."

  
"I'll look after him," Alex promised, moving to his shoulder. Winn drew a deep breath, managed a smile, and disappeared into the coach. The driver flicked the reins, and the glittering carriage vanished into the distance, bound for Reign's castle.

  
The remaining three- Kara, J'onn and M'gann- watched until it was nothing but a speck on the horizon. "I hope he's alright," Kara said. "This really isn't easy for him."

  
"Remember what Cat said," J'onn replied. "He'll be more than anyone knows he is. There's no better situation than this to prove that."

  
"But she also said he'd be less than he wants to be," Kara said. "Who knows what that could mean?"

  
"Believe me, none of Cat's riddles make sense until the moment you're meant to understand them." M'gann shrugged a shoulder. "Let's not waste time worrying about it. There's nothing to do but wait and see what Winn manages to find out about this Luthor princess."

  
And wait they did, but the waiting wasn't easy. J'onn and M'gann were patient, talking in low voices as M'gann checked on the progress of J'onn's wound, but Kara found it hard to keep from fidgeting. She was worried for her friends, worried they wouldn't find out what they needed to, worried that whatever they found out would be bad news. When they finally heard the rattle of the coach's returning wheels an hour or two before midnight, Kara was the first one on her feet, running to meet the carriage as it came to a halt.

  
The door swung open, but no Winn appeared. Instead Alex hopped down onto the carriage step. Kara leaned down to scoop her up in her cupped hands.

  
"What happened?" she asked eagerly. "Did you find out anything about Lena?"

  
"No, Kara, we didn't. It was alright at first- no sign of Reign, and Cat was right, no one even suspected that Winn wasn't royalty. I even got him having fun and dancing with some baroness. Surprisingly, the ladies in attendance seem to think his bumbling awkwardness is charming. There's no accounting for taste." Alex drew a long sigh. "I thought it was going well, but then we ran into a bit of an unexpected hiccup."

  
"What hiccup?" J'onn asked. But Winn's voice cut in first.

  
"I can't go back there." He stepped out of the carriage, almost falling in the process, and Kara drew in her breath sharply. It was as if he'd seen a ghost. He was white-faced and wide-eyed, shaking like a leaf in a storm. The carriage, as if it knew its task was done, vanished, but no one was paying attention.

  
"What happened?" Kara asked, running forward to take his hand in hers.

  
"There were a couple of familiar guests," Alex said.

  
"My stepsisters." Winn's voice was a whisper. "I don't know what they're doing there, but I can't go back. I can't face them. I don't even know what they'd do. They could reveal who I really am."

  
"Oh, Winn." Kara squeezed his hand, searching for words, but J'onn beat her to it.

"Did they recognize you?"

  
"No. I don't think they even saw me."

  
"Do you think they would recognize you if they saw you disguised like this?"

  
"Like this?" Winn laughed a little, though it was strained. "No. I doubt they'd realize it was me even if I walked up and said hello."

  
J'onn put a hand on his shoulder. "Then what do you have to fear?" Winn started to answer, but J'onn held up one finger. "Listen to me, Winn. Ordinarily I wouldn't ask you to go back, to face them. But the fact is that you're the only one who can do this, and we need you. I know what they did to you, and I know those feelings don't fade. But no one knows better than I that you can't live in fear of the past. Someday you have to stop running. You have to face it. You're the only hope we have of finding Lena, and if we can't do it soon Kara could fall asleep again. We need you."

  
Winn ran a hand over his face, blinking rapidly. "I don't know if I'll ever stop being afraid of them."

  
"And you don't have to. Just don't let that fear stop you. You're better than that."

  
For a long moment Winn didn't say anything. Then, slowly, he nodded. "I'll go back," he said. "You're right. I have to. I won't let this quest fail because of me, not when all of you have given up so much. But if something goes wrong, and they recognize me, I don't know what will happen."

  
"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it," M'gann said. "It's a brave thing you're doing, Winn. No need to make it harder wondering what-if."

  
Winn nodded again, but his eyes were troubled, and Kara's heart ached. _It's not fair. It's not right to ask him to do this, but I have no choice. First M'gann falls in love with the one person who won't forgive her curse, then J'onn gets injured, and now Winn has to face his horrible family. And I can't do anything to stop any of it. How many more times am I going to have to stand by and watch my friends get hurt?_

* * *

The mood was much more subdued on the night of the second ball. Cat sent the pumpkin coach again, but didn't make an appearance herself, distracted, as she said in a note, with other matters of the fairy realm. Winn was nervous, Alex tense, and Kara worried; they shared a quick goodbye and then settled down again for another torturous evening of waiting. This one, knowing how bad things had gone the last time and how much worse they could get tonight, was even harder to sit through. When they heard the carriage coming back it wasn't just Kara who shot to her feet. Even J'onn stood up, limping and leaning heavily on M'gann as he made his way to where Kara stood waiting.

  
Kara's brow furrowed as the coach drew closer. She could hear voices. Alex's, specifically, irate and dripping with sarcasm, like an older sister scolding her little brother. "I can't believe this. I just can't believe this. I knew this wasn't going to end well, I knew it from the start, but I never expected _this_ to be the way things went wrong! What is wrong with you? How could you do something so unbelievably _stupid_?"

  
"Whoa, whoa, Alex, easy," J'onn said, as the door swung open and a sheepish-looking Winn stumbled out with Alex on his shoulder. "What on earth happened?"

  
Kara was wondering the same thing. The Winn she was looking at looked nothing like the frightened, cowering Winn of last night. His cheeks were flushed, and his green eyes sparkled, and despite the tongue-lashing from Alex he couldn't stop smiling.

  
"Before you ask, we don't know anything else about Lena," Alex said. "Somebody was too busy making goo-goo eyes at Princess What's-Her-Name from the kingdom of God-Knows-Where. He barely even looked at anyone else all night, much less spoke to them."

"Her _name_ is Ayla, and I think I might be in love with her!"

  
A stunned silence fell over the group. Kara felt her jaw drop, and saw M'gann clap a hand to her mouth as if she didn't know whether to laugh or not. "I don't believe this," J'onn muttered.

  
"I'm serious! I've never felt like this before! We talked, and we danced, and we drank...probably too much punch, and then we danced again. She's a terrible dancer. She stepped on my foot. It was wonderful. And I'm in love with her, at least I think I am, I've never really been in love with anyone." Winn looked suddenly panicked. "Wait, how do I know if I'm in love with her?" 

  
"Well, let's see," Alex said. "Babbling like an idiot, forgetting the entire reason you're there and falling all over yourself like a buffoon. You're in love with her alright."

  
"That's...better than last night, at least!" Kara said, still slightly in shock and unsure how to respond. This certainly wasn't how she'd imagined the second ball ending.

  
"I'm sorry I couldn't learn anything, Kara," Winn said. "I just...I couldn't think of anything else. I'll do it right tomorrow, I promise."

  
He was so earnest, so suddenly worried about disappointing her, that Kara couldn't help but giggle. "It's alright, Winn. I'm glad you had something good happen for once. You deserve it. And I don't have any doubt that you'll find out just what we need to know tomorrow."

  
Winn smiled, squeezing her hand in silent thanks before J'onn called him and Alex over to discuss their plan for the final ball. Kara really had meant what she said; she was glad for him, pleased to see him so genuinely happy. But then she glanced over at M'gann. The older woman's eyes were troubled.

  
"This won't end well," she said softly.

  
"How do you know? If she feels the way about Winn that he does about her-"

  
"But she doesn't. Anything she feels, she feels for the mystery prince who leaves at midnight. The prince who _isn't_ one. Two people in love, one of them not who they claim to be- that story never has a happy ending."

* * *

As hard as the first two nights of waiting had been, the third was even harder. There was a seriousness to it, a knowledge that this was their last chance to learn what they needed to learn. If they failed tonight, the quest was over.

  
For a final time the glistening white coach rolled up, with Cat still conspicuously absent. For a final time Kara said goodbye to Alex and Winn. "I'll find out tonight, Kara," Winn said, throwing his arms around her. "I promise."

  
"I know you will," Kara said, but still she worried. She knew he would try his very best, but what were they supposed to do if he didn't succeed?

  
For a final time Kara sat waiting with J'onn and M'gann, staring up at the stars as the hours ticked by. Nine...ten...eleven. "It's midnight," J'onn said softly, and for the final time they heard the coach returning. As always, Kara ran to meet it, her heart pounding in her chest.

  
"Did you..." Kara began, as Winn stepped out of the carriage with Alex on his shoulder.

  
"We found someone," Alex said. "He recognized the painting, and he says he knows where Lena is."

"But we might have a problem," Winn said sheepishly. "I started asking questions, just like Cat told me to, but I guess I made him suspicious. He asked to see the picture, and when I showed him, he asked if we were working for Lex. I said that Lex had sent us, but that we weren't on his side. He wanted proof that we weren't, and I may have accidentally let it slip that we're from-"

  
"Kryptonia," a new voice cut in. It was an unusual voice, smooth and cultured. "However, he neglected to tell me he was in the company of the princess."

  
Kara stared in confusion at the new figure who stepped gracefully down from the pumpkin coach and made a shallow bow in her direction. He was tall, with a lean build and a handsome face framed by soft, shoulder-length dark hair. His eyes were dark too, with an intelligent, cunning look to them. He was clearly a lord; though his clothing was plain black, it was made of expensive fabric, and the way he laced his fingers together behind his back was something Kara had seen many a nobleman do back at court. Like Lena, this stranger intrigued her, and she found herself wanting to know more about him.

  
"My name is Querl Dox," he said. "And your identity, Kara Zorel, is proof that you're not allied with Lex Luthor. Which means I can safely tell you the location of the lost Luthor princess."

  
"Why should we trust you?" J'onn asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  
"Logically, you shouldn't. You have no reason whatsoever to trust me. But neither do you have any other options. Whether you trust me or not, the fact remains that I know where Lena is."

  
"And how do you know that, if no one else even knows for sure if she's alive?" M'gann asked, putting a hand on her hip.

  
"Because I am the huntsman Lex sent to hide her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for the lateness of this chapter, thy storyteller had a slight medical crisis to handle (I wear braces on my legs and had to get them fixed after a small malfunction). But at long last, the tale continues! If this chapter felt rushed, I sincerely apologize once more, but there was a lot that had to happen in 2000 words, so forgive me my rapid pace.
> 
> Firstly! The stepsisters are back! Does this spell trouble in the future? Of course it does; this is a story and nothing happens by accident.
> 
> Secondly! Winn meets his true love! I haven't seen many (any) fics that involve this pairing, but Winn's is one of those stories that cannot come to pass without a true love, and it is a personal decision of the bard to respect canonically married pairings. I may not be a shipper, beloved readers, but neither am I a homewrecker. If this is not a ship that floats thy boat, I fully understand and thou art at liberty to headcanon something else. And, as always, the main characters- Kara, Alex, Lena, Mon-El, et cetera- shall remain romance free and open to thine interpretation.
> 
> Thirdly! BRAINY HAS ARRIVED! I know many of you were waiting for this character to make his entrance, and I hope I did thy favorite justice. For those who are thinking "how in heaven's name is Brainy the huntsman-" fear not, his story shall be explained in Chapter the Next.
> 
> And lastly. The bard hath received multiple comments and PMs, both here and on fanfiction.net, regarding the entrance of characters from other shows into this story. If thou art one of those readers hoping for a crossover, there shall be a very special announcement in the author's notes of the next chapter that shall hopefully excite you.
> 
> I shall return soon with Part the Eighteenth!


	18. In Which The Huntsman Tells His Story

" _You're_ the huntsman?" Kara exclaimed. Anything was possible, she supposed, but the word huntsman brought to mind a big, rugged, axe-toting man with a beard, not this serious, dignified young nobleman.

  
He nodded. "I am. I know I don't fit the stereotype, but I came by that name because-" He broke off, suddenly. "Well, perhaps I should start from the beginning."

  
"That might be a good idea," J'onn said. Once they were gathered in a circle around the fire, Alex on Kara's shoulder and Kara turning the lost princess' portrait over and over in her hands, the stranger began his story once again.

  
"As you might have guessed, I was born into a noble family," he said. "It was a far-away kingdom; I doubt you've heard the name. And you couldn't very well describe ours as a happy home. My father was alright, but it was my mother who held the reins, and she..." A shadow came into his eyes, and he shook his head as if to clear it. "Well, the less said about her, the better." Kara and J'onn exchanged questioning glances, but stayed quiet, allowing the story to continue uninterrupted.

  
"I was always something of an intellectual. Princess Lena- once I made my way to the Luthor kingdom- she used to call me Brainy." His mouth curved up in a half smile at the memory. "The princess is a good friend of mine."

  
"Brainy," Alex repeated. "Right." She drew the word out a bit longer than she should have, which she often did when she was both amused by and skeptical of something.

  
"How did you end up in the Luthor kingdom anyway?" M'gann asked. 

  
"I was coming to that. It's not that exciting a story, actually. Once things became too tense at home, I decided I'd had enough and struck out on my own- to seek my fortune, as it were." Kara had already noticed that Querl- "Brainy," apparently- talked a bit more formally than most people did. Strangely enough, she liked it.

  
"I didn't really know where I was going, or what I wanted to do when I got there. So I ended up in the Luthor kingdom. And that's where I met Lena. She went exploring in the villages quite frequently, and I suppose she knew that I hadn't been there before, so she asked where I'd come from and what I was doing there. It didn't cross my mind not to give her my real name, but she was glad to hear it. Her mother was friends with mine, she said, and insisted I come back to the palace with her." His brow furrowed. "In hindsight, the fact that my mother was friends with Lillian should have been my first clue as to what the Luthors were like, but I wasn't as careful back then."

  
"So you went to the palace," J'onn said. His face was expressionless, and Kara couldn't tell whether he believed the story or not. "Then what?"

  
"Then I met Lex and his mother. There was nothing to alarm me at first; Lena and I became good friends, and Lex asked me to stay on at the court. I agreed. I would even say I was happy there, for awhile. And then Lionel died, and Lillian took the throne. Once that happened, I started to see who her and her son really were."

  
"Anyone who's been in a room with Lillian for five minutes can see that," Alex said harshly. "Lex hides it a little better, but he's the same way."

  
"And perhaps I should have seen it sooner. All I know is, I didn't. I assume Lex told you the story? What happened between Lena and her mother?"

  
"Lillian got jealous of Lena, so Lex sent you to take her somewhere safe," Kara said. "And for some reason you never brought her back like you were supposed to, so now he's sent all of us to find her."

  
Brainy nodded. "Once I knew what Lex was like, I knew someone had to keep an eye on him," he explained. "So I pretended I was loyal to him, and eventually he started to trust me. It wasn't an easy part to play, but who knows what he would have done if I hadn't been there to talk him out of the worst things." He drew a long sigh. "Sometimes it would get to be too much- the lies, the deception, the intrigue. When that happened, I would slip out to the woods for awhile, just to be alone. That's why they started calling me the Huntsman. Lex thought he could trust me, and he knew I was friends with Lena, which is why he asked me to be the one to take her to safety."

  
"That makes sense," Winn spoke up, "but why didn't you bring her back once Lillian was exiled?"

  
"Because Lena didn't want me to. She knew I wasn't really loyal to her brother, so she didn't hesitate to tell me that. She may have been close with Lex, she may have loved him, but she knew what he was really like just as well as I did. She didn't want the throne, but a Luthor mind can't fathom somebody not wanting power. If Lillian saw her as a threat to the throne, Lex would see the same eventually. And Lex is far more underhanded. She wouldn't have known a moment's peace with her brother as king, and she knew it. So as much as she loved her people, as much as she hated to leave them under Lex's thumb, she decided not to return. I escorted her to safe haven, but I decided not to stay with her. If Lex grew suspicious and came looking, one could hide more easily than two. Of course I couldn't go back to the Luthor kingdom either, so I went to the North Kingdom. It was isolated, closed off- I'd be safe there. But when I heard a rumor that someone was at the Queen's ball asking questions about a lost princess, I thought it might be Lex. So I had to find out what was going on."

  
"That's why I didn't see you the first two nights," Winn said. Brainy shook his head.

  
"I was at the second. You must not have seen me."

  
"Not that you were looking all that hard, between your stepsisters and your lady friend," Alex teased. Winn reddened, but M'gann and Kara laughed, and even J'onn let a bit of a smile slip through. Now that they'd found the person who knew about Lena, and there was nothing to fear, they could see the humor in Winn's, er, distraction.

  
"That's something I don't understand, actually," Brainy said. "I know who most of you are already. You're Sleeping Beauty, obviously." He nodded to Kara before glancing across to J'onn and M'gann. "And I've been around nobility long enough to recognize a knight and his lady."

  
M'gann's cheeks turned pink. "Oh, I'm not his-" But J'onn was smiling, just a little, and Brainy was already talking again, so she fell silent.

  
Brainy's gaze flicked to Alex. "Your friend," he said, "is...in an unfortunate and obviously magical predicament which I shall not comment upon."

  
"Wise move," Alex said. Brainy turned to Winn.

  
"But you," he said, "are _not_ a prince. So what were you doing at the ball?"

  
"Was it that obvious?"

  
"To an ordinary royal, no, it wouldn't have been. To anyone looking a little more closely, it was quite apparent. I tend to observe things more sharply than most, so I knew right away. And of course the disappearing coach-" Brainy waved his hand toward the empty space where the pumpkin coach had stood- "suggests magical involvement. Does one of you wield magic?"

  
"Us?" Kara laughed. "No. It was- well, maybe I should start from the beginning too. As long as you think it's safe, J'onn?"

J'onn nodded. "I think we can trust him, Kara. Go ahead."

  
And Kara did, pouring out the whole story with the others adding bits and pieces she forgot. Brainy was a good listener, asking only a few questions here and there and staying quiet the rest of the time. Not even the stranger parts of the story- like Kara's curse or the dragon in the dark- seemed to faze him, leading Kara to wonder if perhaps the "far-away kingdom" he hailed from was as magical as Kryptonia was.

  
"An incredible quest," he said when she had finally finished. "Although I can't see where Lena fits into it."

  
"Neither can we," Kara replied. "All we know is what Cat told us- she's important somehow."

  
"But if Lena hasn't gone back home in all this time because she wants to avoid her brother," M'gann said, "I doubt she'll want us bringing Lex proof that she's alive. Once he has that, what's to stop him searching for her?"

  
"That's up to her," J'onn said. "All we can do is find her. That's what Cat told us to do, so that's what we will do, and we'll just have to trust that things will work themselves out. You still haven't told us where exactly she is, by the way." The last words he directed towards Brainy.

  
"It's easier if I show you. It's...quite a remote location, and very few know the way. But I'd be happy to guide you."

  
"How long is the journey?" Alex asked. "We don't know how much time we have before Kara falls asleep again." 

  
_Or how much time we have before something terrible happens back home,_ Kara added silently in her mind. She still hadn't told the others about the danger Cat had foreseen for Kryptonia. There didn't seem to be a point to telling them, since not even her fairy godmother knew what the danger was and there was little they could do about it, but that didn't stop Kara from worrying.

  
"Two weeks' travel, perhaps. We'll have to pass through Daxam, but it's not a dangerous route."

  
"Daxam?" Kara repeated. "I remember them. Weren't they that kingdom where there was always some festival or another going on and no one could ever take anything seriously? Don't tell me they're our enemies too."

  
"That's the one," Alex said. "And no, they're not our enemies. We're still each ignoring the other kingdom's existence, like always."

  
"You may get a handful of glares as we're passing through, but nothing worse than that," M'gann added. "Daxam's too small- and too devil-may-care- to risk crossing swords with your cousin."

  
"Then we don't have anything to worry about," Kara decided. "Unless the dragon in the dark shows back up, of course." The mention of the dragon brought another question to her mind. "Brainy, do you think Lena could be the person under the fourth curse?"

  
The huntsman shook his head. "It would be impossible. I didn't leave her on her own; she's with some very good friends of mine. Very powerful, magical friends. They can shield her from any spell Lillian- or Lex, if he knew how- might try to cast. Whoever the fourth curse belongs to, it isn't Lena."

  
"Well, I hope we learn who it does belong to, and soon," Kara said. "We can't break a curse we don't know about." _And the sooner we break the four curses, the sooner we can get home to help keep Kryptonia safe._

  
"We'll leave in the morning, then," J'onn declared.

  
"Is your leg up to that?" M'gann asked worriedly.

  
"It will have to be," Brainy said. "The sooner we're out of this kingdom, the better off we'll be."

  
"Why's that?" Alex asked.

  
"Don't you feel how cold it's getting? And look at the stars." Kara glanced up, following Brainy's finger. The friendly pinpricks of light had vanished, obscured by heavy clouds, leaving the night in pitch blackness. And he was right about the cold too- a chilly tendril wrapped around her. Shivering, she reached for a blanket.

  
"We left the ball early, so I can't say for certain," Brainy said. "But if I had to guess, I would say that Reign has returned to the North Kingdom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus we learn Brainy's backstory. Making him the Huntsman, a role which typically doth not enjoy much attention, gave thy bard a little more room to tweak his story, which is always enjoyable. And we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the coming chapters-
> 
> WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEDIEVAL-ESE TO BRING YOU AN ANNOUNCEMENT.
> 
> So, as you may remember, I had said in the end notes of the last chapter that there would be a special announcement for those of you who were hoping for characters from other shows to make an appearance in this fic. Well, this is that announcement. After looking over my outline for the rest of this fic, there just wasn't room for a crossover. And I definitely don't want to force anything. But don't despair! After much thought, I've opened up a Tumblr ask blog that will allow you to request ficlets featuring characters from other shows! Request a ficlet about someone, and I'll cast them in a fairy tale just as if they were appearing in this story, and write you a mini-fic about it. (You can also ask for more about a Supergirl character, if you'd like). You can ask for anything that piques your interest in this au- a "before the story started" or "after happy ever after" type thing, a missing scene, a character study, whatever. This way I can satisfy the appetites of those readers who desperately want a crossover, without forcing something that this particular fic doesn't have room for. I'll be keeping the asks running for as long as this fic does, or even longer if there's a lot of interest! I love this magical AU I've created, and I'll take any chance to keep playing in it! You can ask anonymously if you so choose, so please don't be shy! I'd love to get this blog busy as soon as possible, so head over to https://www.tumblr.com/blog/arrowversefairytales and send in your asks!
> 
> WE NOW RETURN TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEDIEVAL-ING.


	19. In Which The Travelers Meet A Most Unusual Outlaw

By the time they woke up in the morning, it was obvious that Reign had come back to her kingdom. A light drizzle of snow had fallen during the night, turning to a glistening sheen of ice wherever it touched. It was as cold as winter, every trace of summer vanished. The mountain peaks were covered in white, and Kara shivered, wrapping her red cape tighter around her body.

  
M’gann rekindled the dying fire, mixing up a thick, warm porridge for breakfast. They ate in silence, their teeth chattering too hard for much conversation. While M’gann had been getting breakfast ready, J’onn had cut a long, thick pine branch and stripped off the needles to serve as a cane. Thankfully, his wound seemed to have healed enough to handle walking with the help of the branch, something they were all relieved to see.

  
As quickly as possible, they were on their way. It was Brainy who took the lead now, since he still hadn’t given them a name for their destination. Kara almost wanted to ask more about Lena, or about the “powerful magical friends” he had mentioned. But he was so serious, so focused- she didn’t know if he was the type for casual conversation.

  
Their usual group dynamic, however, didn’t change much with the addition of their newcomer. Because while Kara, Alex and J’onn left Brainy largely to himself as they grew used to his presence, Winn and M’gann took the opposite approach. M’gann seemed to understand Brainy a little better than the others did, since she had been almost as reserved herself, at least at first.

  
And Winn? Well, Winn had never been all that good at reading people. He was just as cheerful and exuberant with Brainy as he was with everyone else. Brainy...didn’t seem to understand him. His responses to Winn’s many, _many_ eager questions were mostly one or two words, as noncommittal as possible, and he looked at Winn with a slightly furrowed brow as if the other man mystified and maybe even slightly aggravated him.

  
Thankfully, though Reign’s kingdom was dangerous, it was also small, and by the end of the day they had passed through it. The transition when they crossed the Daxam border was jarring; it was as if an invisible barrier divided winter from summer, divided the North Kingdom from the rest of the world. One minute they were shivering, and the next they were perfectly warm. 

  
“We’ll keep off the main roads,” Brainy said. “No sense looking for trouble if we can avoid it.”

  
To Kara’s relief, they had now changed direction. While they weren’t exactly getting closer to Kryptonia, they weren’t getting farther away from it either. If whatever disaster Cat had foreseen decided to make itself known, it wouldn’t take them any longer to return home.

  
(Kara ignored the little voice in her head that insisted they were already too far to do much good).

  
As dusk began to fall, Brainy pointed out a range of mountains that had just become visible on the horizon. “That’s where we’re heading,” he said. “It’s easy to get lost in those mountains if you don’t know the way.”

  
“But you do,” Winn said. Brainy shook his head.

  
“Actually, I don't. We'll have to find someone to guide us, but we'll cross that bridge once we come to it. I only made it the first time because I’ve earned the trust of those who live there. It’s not an easy thing, not by any means, but I managed.”

  
Once again Kara found her curiosity piqued. She was bursting with questions, wanting to know everything about their mysterious new companion, but she knew it would take time for him to feel comfortable in their group. With an effort, she restrained herself, filing away her questions to ask later.

  
For the next few days, they did as Brainy had suggested and kept away from the main paths, avoiding the people of Daxam as much as they could. They couldn’t avoid them entirely, and there were a few icy stares from those who recognized the Kryptonian princess, but Kara ignored them.

  
Daxam was prettier than the North Kingdom. Not as pretty as Kryptonia- Daxam was still rocky and treacherous- but not as harsh and forbidding as Reign’s domain had been. On their fourth or fifth day in the country, they found themselves deep in a thick oak forest. The shade and beautiful surroundings revived them all, and soon they were chatting and laughing as happily as they had at the beginning of the quest, before the curses, the dragon and all the other complications that had arisen. Even the horses seemed happier, no doubt appreciating the feel of soft leaves under their feet. “It’s just like the forests back home,” Alex sighed, in a rare show of sentiment. 

  
“Be on your guard, though,” J’onn warned. “A place like this, as pretty as it is, is an excellent place for an ambush. Daxam’s got more than its fair share of highwaymen, mainly because the royals are too drunk and self-absorbed to do anything about them.”

  
As if on cue, an arrow sliced through the air, whizzing between Kara and Winn, who had been riding next to her. Winn yelped, and Kara jumped, pulling her horse to a stop as a cheerful male voice rang out from somewhere above them.

  
“As a matter of fact,” the voice announced, “this _is_ an excellent place for an ambush!” 

  
“J’onn,” Alex complained, “why are you always right?”

  
J’onn didn’t answer, swiftly drawing his sword. Kara and M’gann had done the same with their weapons, and even Brainy, to Kara’s surprise, produced a dagger. The invisible voice laughed.

  
“Those won’t do you much good, I’m afraid. Arrows are faster. Besides, the odds are six to twenty; you can chance it if you want, but I don’t advise it. Don’t worry, though. Just cooperate with us and you’ll go on your way unharmed.”

  
“Why don’t you show your face first, and then we’ll talk cooperation,” M’gann challenged. There was a rustling in the leaves, and suddenly a tall, handsome man dropped out of a tree ahead of them, sweeping off his hat and making a low bow.

  
“Certainly,” he said. 

  
Kara blinked, more than a little taken aback by the outlaw's easy, fearless confidence. As he straightened up, she got a good look at his face. He was dressed entirely in green, which made sense for the forest he apparently lived in. He had a scruffy, roguish look about him, with bluish-gray eyes that glimmered cheerfully. All in all, he looked nothing like an outlaw should look, not threatening or intimidating in any way except for the longbow he held in one hand. And obviously, judging by the shot he'd taken a minute ago, he was no stranger to using the weapon.

  
"Who on earth are you?" Alex demanded. The man's eyes widened.

  
"A frog just spoke to me," he said. "Magic, right? Alright then. In answer to your question, folks around here call me Robin Hood."

  
M'gann's brow furrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  
"Well, originally it was the Robber in the Wood, but it's mutated over the last year. I like it, actually. Very dashing. Gets the point across. And I'm not actually a robber. I do relieve unsuspecting nobles of their worldly goods, but it's not for my own sake. I do what I do to help the poor people of Daxam. They've gone unnoticed too long by my par..." He corrected himself quickly. "Uh, by the king and queen."

  
"Who are obviously your parents," Brainy spoke up. "You're Prince Mon-El. I know every royal family from here to Metropolis going back three generations. And what's more, our odds aren't six to twenty. You're alone out here. The trees aren't moving, there's no sound- twenty men wouldn't be that quiet."

  
The outlaw's eyes widened, obviously a little taken aback. "You're...just as smart as you look. Alright, so maybe I'm out here by myself and I'm only doing all this because I was tired of knowing what my parents were doing to our people and not lifting a finger to help. But regardless, I'm still the one with the bow and arrow and you're still nobility, so...I'm still robbing you."

  
Alex snorted. "Be my guest. You're obviously not the observant type. Do we look like your typical rich vacationers?"

  
Mon-El opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, tilting his head to the side as he took in their travel-worn clothing. "Now that you mention it," he said, "you most certainly don't."

  
"Right," J'onn said. "That's because we're travelers. We've been on a quest for months. Most of us may be nobles, but at this point we don't have more than a handful of coins between us."

  
"A quest, you say?" Mon-El glanced over them again, and his gaze landed on Kara. "Of course! I should have known. The great Sleeping Beauty, Kara Zor-El of Kryptonia. I have absolutely no idea who the rest of you are, but I'm honored, Your Royal Highness." He bowed again, and Kara stifled a giggle. Obviously this outlaw prince was still figuring out the way things worked outside of the palace, but he seemed to have his heart in the right place. And it couldn't have been easy, turning his back on his family and his luxurious royal life in order to help the downtrodden peasants of Daxam. It was a brave decision, and one she could respect.

  
"Yes, that's Sleeping Beauty," Brainy said, barely able to contain the annoyance that clearly simmered under the surface. "And our business is a very urgent matter, so if you're through wasting our time, we'll be on our way."

  
An idea sprang suddenly to Kara's mind, an idea as improbable and risky as the wild shoe chase she'd started so many weeks ago. She liked this outlaw and found herself strangely drawn to his cause, even if she didn't necessarily approve of the way he went about it. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way she could help while also aiding the quest.

  
"Wait a minute, Brainy," she said, pointing her finger at the distant mountain range. "Mon-El, would you happen to know those mountains?"

  
"Of course."

  
"Well enough to guide someone through them?"

  
"Princess, I've lived in Daxam my whole life. It'd be as simple as picking daisies."

  
"Kara, what are you doing?" J'onn asked.

  
"I'm making a proposition. If you really can guide us through those mountains, Mon-El, I'll pay you handsomely once we're back in Kryptonia. More than you can steal in a month. I'll even talk to my cousin, see if he can put a little pressure on your parents to make some real changes in this kingdom."

  
Mon-El looked first startled, then hopeful. "Really? You would do all that? Just for guiding you through the mountains?"

"We need to get through them quickly. We don't know how much time we have before I fall asleep again. I should warn you, there might be a visit or two from a very unfriendly dragon."

  
"So I'll bring my bow."

  
"Good idea."

  
"Well then, princess," Mon-El declared, a wide grin spreading over his face, "I think we have a deal! I'll just drop by my campsite and get a few things and my horse and meet you back here in a few minutes. And then we'll be off on our adventure!" Without waiting for an answer, he strode off into the trees, whistling as he went.

  
"I hope you know what you're doing, Kara," Alex muttered. "Sure, he's nice enough, but I've never seen a bigger buffoon. Are you sure he won't just get us hopelessly lost and then leave us high and dry? We literally just met him five minutes ago."

  
"I don't know for _sure_ , no," Kara replied. "But I don't think he would. Besides, the last bargain we made was with Lex Luthor. Compared to that, how bad can this one be?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus we learn Mon-El's fairy tale role. The bard knows that this role is likely better suited to Oliver Queen, but Mon-El was cast before this tale became a crossover, so this is just the way things worked out. And speaking of crossovers, a special thanks to all of mine readers who have sent in requests; the bard greatly appreciates the chance to expand the world of this story.
> 
> One other small detail which I shouldst probably mention- whilst this fic is indeed platonic, thy bard has always leaned more towards Karamel than Supercorp. Therefore, thy bard is used to writing and reading the pair of them in a romantic way. Whilst I shall do my very best to keep my fic platonic, there might be a handful of scenes where a bit of the romantic subtext from other fics slips through. I shall remain on my guard against this occurrence, but just because thy bard also enjoys *reading* fics, the way those fics portray the two characters might rub off on me in the very slightest of ways. My humblest apologies, and I shall return soon with Part the Twentieth!


	20. In Which The Lost Princess Is Found At Last

Although some members of the group- Brainy and J'onn, especially- were skeptical, Mon-El turned out to be just the guide they needed. Despite his carefree, somewhat heedless nature, he was able to think quickly on his feet and settle down to seriousness when the situation called for it. He fit seamlessly into their established dynamics too, joking easily with Winn and Kara, slightly scared of Alex (like everyone was) and cheerfully respectful of J'onn and M'gann. It was as if he always been a part of their little band, and Kara especially found herself drawn to him. He reminded her of a far more confident version of Winn- awkward, bumbling, sometimes clueless, but always with a heart of gold beneath.

  
Within three days, they had reached the mountains. As Mon-El picked their way through the treacherous landscape, pointing out pitfalls and dangers that only a Daxam native could have seen, Brainy kept his eyes open for landmarks he recognized. He seemed lighter, happier now that they were drawing closer to the home of his friends, and Kara was happy to see it. She worried, sometimes, about Brainy; no matter what they did to draw him in and make him a part of their ragtag little family, he always seemed a little bit distant, lost in a world of his own. It was good to see him talking more, even smiling every so often, coming a little further out of his shell. Maybe, by the end of this quest, he would let his guard down completely.

  
"We'll be there in a day or two," he announced finally, as the end of the week approached. "I recognize those three rock spires."

  
"What exactly are we supposed to be keeping an eye out for?" Mon-El asked. "I can't be sure I'm taking us in the right direction if I don't know what to watch for."

  
"A clearing," Brainy answered. "There's a little stream that flows through it, a few trees, a stand of berry bushes. And a cottage. It shouldn't be hard to spot once we get close."

  
He was right about that. The next day, as sunset was falling, they rode into the clearing he had described. Kara was awestruck by the perfect, picturesque beauty of the place. She could think of no better spot to find safe haven, and suddenly she realized why Brainy seemed so much happier here. Tucked away in this little idyllic corner of the world, you felt as if no problem anywhere else could ever reach you.

  
A wide smile broke out on Brainy's face as he swiftly dismounted his horse, tossing the reins over a branch. "Nia?" he called out. "Eve? It's me."

  
The cottage door flew open, and two women rushed out, one short and blonde and rosy-cheeked, the other tall and dark-haired. Both were smiling as they threw their arms around the huntsman. "I didn't know you were coming!" the dark-haired one cried as she pulled back from the embrace.

  
"Neither did I. Things happened rather suddenly after I reached the Luthor kingdom. Is Lena inside? I've brought guests who would very much like to speak with her."

  
The blonde looked over at their little group, her eyes widening. "So I see," she said. "Quite a few guests. I'd better pop into the kitchen and see if I can stretch dinner." She hurried away as they dismounted from their horses.

  
"Princess Kara of Kryptonia, meet Lady Nia Nal," Brainy said, as the dark-haired woman swept a graceful curtsy. "She's one of the magical friends I told you about."

  
"Are you some kind of fairy?" Kara asked. As far as she could tell, this woman was human.

  
But Nia surprised her. Snapping her fingers just as Cat might have done, she immediately vanished...until Kara glanced down and saw a much smaller Nia smiling up at her. "I'm a dwarf, actually," she said. "Distant cousins of fairies, you might say." She snapped her fingers again, returning herself to a normal size. One by one, Brainy introduced the other members of the group, and she greeted each one warmly before inviting them inside.

  
After so many weeks of being on the road, it felt strangely foreign to be inside a house again. The cottage was rustic but cozy, lit by crackling firelight and filled with the tantalizing aroma of fresh bread. As she had promised, the other dwarf, Eve, was bustling around the kitchen, setting the oaken table with the kind of food Kara hadn't seen since she'd left the palace- a roast chicken, soft white biscuits, fresh green salad and a warm berry pie in the center. It took a little creative maneuvering to circle enough chairs around the table so that they could all eat, but they managed it. Kara couldn't help but notice that one chair was empty.

  
Soft footsteps sounded on the stone staircase, and as one they all turned to look. Kara's eyes went wide.

  
There on the staircase was the girl whose portrait she had stared at so many times. She was the painting come to life, every bit as lovely as she had looked. But she looked different now, dressed simply instead of royally, with her black hair tied in a loose braid over her shoulder, her feet bare, and, most noticeably, the shadow of sadness gone from her face. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes sparkled. She stopped short at the bottom of the staircase, a curious look on her features.

  
"I thought I heard voices," she said with a smile. Her own voice was lilting and musical with a light accent that Kara couldn't remember hearing in Lex's voice. "And Brainy, you're back! What is all this?"

  
"In a manner of speaking, Princess Lena," J'onn said, "we're ambassadors sent here on behalf of your brother."

  
Lena drew back, a crease appearing on her forehead. "Lex sent you after me?"

  
"He did," Kara answered. "But before you judge us for that, or assume we're here to harm you, let me tell you the whole story."

  
For what would hopefully be the last time, she poured out the story of the quest, with the others adding their own little remarks. She left nothing out except the cryptic warning Cat had given her about Kryptonia's imminent danger; she hadn't yet told the others about it, and it was not the time to reveal it now. Lena listened politely, asking a question here and there, but the look on her face was strange and unreadable. Whether or not she believed the story, whether or not she trusted them, Kara couldn't say.

  
When they had at last finished the story, the table was empty, the fire was burning low and the sun had vanished beneath the horizon, leaving the world in darkness. A long moment passed before anyone spoke.

  
It was Lena, finally, who broke the silence, folding her hands on the table in a way that gave away her royal upbringing. "So Lex really does want me back," she said half to herself. "But does he want me back because he misses me, or because he's gone down his mother's path and decided I'm a threat to his crown?" She drew a long sigh. "I'm assuming you've thought about my choices, Brainy. I'd appreciate some advice."

  
Brainy nodded. "I won't tell you what to do, Lena. That's your decision. What I will tell you is this. I think it would be very dangerous for you to be back in Lex's reach. He's a chaotic, unpredictable man. Maybe his motives for wanting to find you are pure and noble. But look at the way he decided to go about it- kidnapping and threatening another kingdom's princess until she agreed to do as he asked, and threatening to declare war on a currently defenseless kingdom if she broke her word. Who knows whether he would have carried out that threat, but just the fact that he made it- that should tell you something about the kind of man he is. I recognize that he's your brother. I recognize that the pair of you were close. But you can't let that closeness blind you, Lena. You _cannot_ trust him."

  
"I never met Lex Luthor," Mon-El interjected, his voice for once earnest, emphasizing the importance of his words. "I don't know your situation. But I'm also a royal on the run, princess. And I'll tell you right now that if I ever got word that my parents were looking for me, I'd run as far and as fast as I could. When you turn your back on that life, there's usually not a good reason why someone might want you back in it."

  
Lena bowed her head for a moment, fixing her gaze on her lap as her folded hands quivered slightly. When she looked back up at the rest of them, her mismatched eyes glimmered with the sheen of unshed tears.

  
"You're probably right," she whispered. "Both of you. But I-" Her voice broke. Nia reached out and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and after a moment the princess steeled herself and went on.

  
"Since I've come here to this cottage, I've heard not a word from Lex. He never even made an attempt to search for me, not until now. Eventually, I...I suppose I resigned myself to the fact that my disappearance was a happy accident for him. A way to take the crown without having me to stand in the way. He may not have contributed to it, not like Lillian did, but he used it. At least, that's what I told myself. That's why I was content to stay here. But what if...what if it's not like that? What if he's looking for me because he really does want me back? I'll admit he went about it in the wrong way, but what else could you expect from a Luthor? If there's a chance I could have my brother back, a chance I could help my people instead of just abandoning them...what if I could temper Lex, so to speak? What if my presence there stops him from doing the things his family is known for? What if I could save lives? What if I could save _him?_ Is it really wise just to throw all that away because we suspect he may be lying? Shouldn't we give him a chance?"

  
"Kal said the same thing," Alex pointed out. "It almost ended in tragedy."

  
"But Lex has had a rivalry with Kryptonia since as long as I can remember. It'd be different for me. I'm his sister."

  
"You're still a threat to his throne," Mon-El said.

  
"Besides," Brainy put in, "you're forgetting one thing. Lillian. We've assumed she's dead, and she's given us no reason to think otherwise, but what if she isn't? If you reveal yourself to the rest of the world, you'd potentially be revealing yourself to her."

  
"She'll already know. She's a magic-wielder, remember? As soon as I leave this cottage, as soon as I'm too far away for Nia and Eve to shield me, she'll know exactly where I am. But if I was with Lex, he would never let her enter his kingdom. I'd be safe from her." She sighed again, biting her lip as her expression grew determined. "I'm sorry. I understand your caution, all of you, and I thank you for being so protective of me. But if there's a chance to get my old life back, I have to take it. I'm going home."

  
J'onn cleared his throat. "Then we'll take you," he said. "Eve, Nia, if you don't mind us staying the night, we'll be on our way in the morning."

  
The two dwarves nodded, but both looked uneasy about their friend's decision to leave their protection. Kara had to admit that she was nervous too. It would be good to be through with Lex, to focus solely on the dragon before disaster struck the home she loved, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the Luthor princess was making a serious mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last our Snow White gets her proper introduction. I apologize if Lena felt out of character; for some reason writing her does not come as easily to thy bard as other characters do. And the introduction of Nia and Eve- I hope this casting wasn't odd, as I have been excited for this since Chapter One. I knew I didn't have enough characters for the traditional seven dwarves, so I chose Nia for her connection to Brainy and Eve for her connection to Lena. And of course, both of them got a magical upgrade. It may be a little strange, but hopefully 'tis enjoyable all the same!
> 
> Brace yourselves, dear readers. From here, as they say, it is all downhill. I shall return soon with Chapter the Twenty-First.


	21. In Which True Love's Kiss Becomes True Love's Curse

Kara woke the next morning in high spirits. If she had known what was about to happen, what the rest of the day would bring, she would not have been so happy. But she didn't, and so she scrambled out of bed with a smile on her face. Really, she had plenty to smile about. Half of her quest had come to its end. The lost Luthor princess was found at last. Today they would start out for the Luthor kingdom, which would rid them of Lex's overbearing shadow and take them close to Kryptonia. If and when the danger came for Kara's kingdom, she would be close enough to make it back in time to help. "With any luck," she said to herself, "we'll cross paths with the dragon again on the way back. We can find out who cursed me, defeat them, and put this whole mess behind us." She didn't know how the other curses, or Cat's riddles, might come to pass, but she would trust that it would all fall into place. 

  
Most of the others were still asleep, and Kara tiptoed quietly out of the cottage, careful not to wake them. The journey had been a long one, and the cottage was a welcome chance to rest, but Kara was too excited to sleep any longer. She breathed in the crisp, fresh scent of the morning dew, glad to have a few minutes just to enjoy herself. They weren't in any rush to leave this morning; they had talked over their plans last night. Eve insisted on making one last breakfast feast as a farewell to Lena, and they would all enjoy it before they set out for the Luthor kingdom. 

  
And then, in just a few short weeks, the quest would be over. Kara sat down on a fallen log, watching a robin peck at the grass, thinking about what might happen once the quest was really ended. She would go back to the palace, of course, with Alex- hopefully human- beside her. J'onn would likely return with them, as well as M'gann once her curse was broken. They might not stay at the palace, but they'd probably settle down close by. Lena would be with Lex, and Mon-El would go back to Daxam, back to his outlaw ways. Winn would find his princess, who hopefully wouldn't mind when she found out who he really was. Brainy, well, who knew what Brainy would do? He was always an enigma.

  
It was a strange feeling, to be thinking about life after the quest. They had been journeying for such a long time that it was hard to imagine how things would be when the journey was over.

  
A sudden voice broke Kara from her reverie. "Penny for your thoughts?" Nia asked, sitting down beside her. 

  
"Oh!" Kara laughed. "You startled me. I didn't think anyone else was up."

  
Nia shrugged. "I'm always up early. I don't sleep well. I mean, I do, but not like everyone else does." At Kara's confused look, she hurried to explain. "I'm what the dwarves call a Dreamer- half dwarf, half fairy. I can see the future just like a fairy can, but it comes with the side effect of random sleeping spells."

  
Kara's eyes widened. "You can see the future?"

  
"Sometimes. It doesn't always work. But once in a while I've even been able to see a few things that fairies can't."  
Kara caught her breath, feeling her heart speed up just a little. If Nia could see things that fairies couldn't, maybe she could tell who was behind the curse. Maybe she could identify the shadow hanging over Kryptonia.

  
"How do you do it?" Kara asked, hoping she didn't sound too eager. Nia shrugged again.

  
"It just happens most times. Sometimes I can speed things along if I concentrate." She glanced knowingly at Kara. "There's something you need to know, isn't there?"

  
"If you don't mind," Kara said sheepishly. "Cat- my fairy godmother- she can't see who cursed me. And she told me there was something hanging over my kingdom, a dark shadow. Something bad that's about to happen if I'm not home soon."

  
"A shadow," Nia repeated. "That suggests dark magic of some kind."

  
"Can you see through that?"

  
"It's hit or miss, but I'll try. Give me your hand." Nia took Kara's hand in her own, closing her eyes. Kara watched in silence, wondering what she might be seeing. It really did look as if she was asleep.

  
Suddenly, with a little gasp, her eyes flew open, and she released Kara's hand quickly. "What?" Kara asked. "What did you see?"

  
"A dragon," Nia answered. "A dragon...but you were standing in front of it. You...you looked hurt, and you didn't have a weapon."

  
Kara put a hand to her mouth. So she _was_ destined to battle the dragon, even if she didn't succeed. "The others," she whispered. "Where were the others? J'onn, M'gann, Lena, Alex..."

  
"They weren't there," Nia said. "You were by yourself. And you were...close. The dragon is closer than you think."

  
Kara frowned. "What does that mean?"

  
"I don't know. That's just what I saw."

  
Kara drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. "Alright. Alright, well, at least I was fighting. That means I'll confront the dragon at some point, which means I have a chance to figure out who she is. Did you see anything about Kryptonia?"

  
"Just shadow, like your fairy godmother said. I'm sorry I couldn't see more."

  
"No, no, it's not your fault. I know more than I did a few minutes ago thanks to you."

  
Nia opened her mouth to reply, but the cottage door squeaked open, and Lena's voice called out. "Kara, Nia! Eve has breakfast ready!"

  
"Right," Nia said, getting to her feet. "We should probably not tell the others about this."

  
"Of course not," Kara agreed. "I wouldn't want to ruin your and Eve's farewell to Lena."

  
They crossed the clearing together, both of them shaking off their pensive moods. Lena was standing in the doorway, a wide smile on her face. "I wondered where the pair of you had gotten to!" she said brightly. "Come on, Eve's waiting." Kara made her best effort to return the princess' smile, although she couldn't quite match the twinkle in Lena's eyes.

  
Lena's eyes.

  
Kara stopped short with a little, disbelieving gasp. _The dragon is closer than you think..._

  
She glanced at Lena again, her mouth suddenly dry. Lena, with her raven-black hair and glistening emerald eyes. Eyes like the dragon had had. It seemed impossible that this charming, graceful princess could be the woman who lurked within the black dragon...but if there was anything Kara had learned on this quest, it was that nothing was impossible. Not when magic was involved.

  
Still her mind raced to create another solution. It couldn't be Lena. Lena would have been far too young when Kara fell asleep...unless magic could explain that too. Magic could explain anything. And the eyes were the same. Lena had the dragon's eyes. Surely that was not a coincidence.

  
_No_ , Kara told herself. _I won't believe it. Not until I have proof. I have nothing to base a suspicion on. But look what happened when my cousin trusted a Luthor...stop it, Kara. Lena is not Lex._

  
Still, try as she might, she couldn't quite meet Lena's eyes as she hurried to take her seat with the others.

* * *

By the time the feast was drawing to its close, Kara felt a little bit better. Though it was clear that Eve and Nia were sorry to say goodbye to their friend, the general mood was happy, mirroring the feelings Kara had had that morning. A large part of the quest was over, no matter what happened next.

  
Once the clatter of forks and spoons had died down somewhat, and the noise of contented munching was replaced with quiet chatter, J'onn surprised them all by pushing his chair back and rising to his feet, tapping a spoon against a goblet in a call for silence. The room quieted immediately.

  
"I know you probably weren't expecting this," J'onn began, "but we knights are given to making speeches. M'gann, if you would..." He held out his hand to her, and, with a slight blush rising to her cheeks, M'gann stood up beside him.

  
"We have a long way to go on this quest," J'onn said. "And I don't know what the road ahead has in store for us. But I just wanted to take a moment and tell all of you how proud I am of how far we have already come. I've come to view all of you as my family. I've gotten to know you, and I've watched you grow and change in remarkable ways. And I think that, in itself, is its own kind of magic."

"Hear, hear!" Nia called out, raising a goblet full of the orange juice they'd been drinking. Laughter rippled around the room, and then J'onn went on.

  
"And now I would like to call on another kind of magic. Because you, all of you, are not the only ones who have changed. _I've_ changed. Kara, Alex, when you found me in that village I was nothing but a battle-hardened old soldier grieving the life he had lost. But now, through this journey, you've showed me how to have a new one. You've given me happiness. You've given me something to care about. And-" he glanced at M'gann, slipping his arm around her shoulders- "you've given me someone to love."

  
Kara's heart stopped beating. She saw M'gann draw back, as if in slow motion, her eyes going wide and round with sudden terror. But J'onn was already leaning down, pulling her close, pressing his lips to hers in true love's kiss.

  
The curse was quicker than lightning. With a sharp wail of despair, M'gann tore herself out of J'onn's grip, throwing her hands up to her face. Only they weren't hands, not anymore. They were claws, and M'gann herself was just what she had told Kara she would be. A monstrous white beast, every trace of humanity gone as if it had never been there. Dark magic at its very worst.

  
J'onn cried out, staggering backwards. A thousand emotions crossed his face at once. Shock. Confusion. Utter horror. And then, finally, cold fury.

  
M'gann saw. "It wasn't me, J'onn!" she pleaded, her voice still unchanged. "I would never- I didn't- it's still me, on the inside, I haven't changed-" She reached out a trembling hand, but he pulled back as if it were a serpent, his lip curling and his face a thundercloud. M'gann turned and fled, sobbing, from the cottage.

  
No one spoke. No one moved. J'onn's face was stricken, his eyes as hard as iron. Kara stood up, trying to calm her own trembling hands. She could barely believe what was happening, how everything had gone wrong so unbelievably fast.

  
"J'onn," she said softly, "it's not what you think. It's her curse. She can't help it. She was going to tell you-"

  
"You knew about this?" J'onn's voice was so low and dark that Kara had to strain to hear it. Guilt tugged at her heart.

  
"She loves you," she said softly. "Just like you love her."

  
"Love her?" The words came out a whisper. "I loved a woman who doesn't exist. I was wrong to think I could have love again. It was all a lie, and she knew it." J'onn's jaw tightened. "I should never have come here," he said.

  
"J'onn!" Alex cried, but he paid her no attention. Turning on his heel, he walked swiftly from the cottage, crossing the clearing in a few quick, angry strides, his fury visible in every fiber of his body. Untying his horse and mounting up quickly, he drove his heel into the animal's side and galloped away into the mountains.

Never once did he give a backward glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I did say it was all downhill from here. At least Nia's magical origin story might have been enjoyable? And the questions raised about Lena and the dragon may provide some food for thought?
> 
> I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Second.


	22. In Which Old Enemies Open New Wounds

Shell-shocked. That was the only word to describe the haze of shock and pain and disbelief that fell over them all. In silence, moving like people in a dream, they straightened the cottage and readied the horses to leave. Kara had expected to feel something, anything, but the emotions all swirled together to create something that just felt like a dull ache. Beyond that, she was numb. Her heart broke for J'onn and M'gann, but she couldn't bring herself to grieve the loss. They had failed to break the first curse, and the price of that failure had been higher than Kara could ever have fathomed. J'onn had become a second father to them all, and going on without him, and without M'gann's caring touch and gentle smile, seemed impossible.

  
But there was nothing else to be done. If Kara could have had her way, she would have stayed on that mountain forever, gone after the pair of them and tried anything to get them to return. Reality, however, wasn't so merciful. Whether she liked it or not, the dark, foreboding shadow still hung over her kingdom, and the remaining seventy-six years of her own curse hovered in the back of her mind, telling her no matter how much she hated it that there was nothing to do but go on.

  
"You could stay a little longer," Eve had ventured, but Kara shook her head.

  
"I don't like it," she said. "It feels like a betrayal to go on without them. And J'onn's the only capable protector we have. Without him, we're all in danger. But we don't have a choice. We have to keep going and...and hope that this will all come right, somehow. Even if I don't see how it can."

  
Their goodbyes to the two dwarves were subdued and sorrowful, although some people, like Lena and Winn, did their best to muster smiles. "I'll look for them," Nia promised as she threw her arms around Kara. "Every day, if I have to, and I'll talk some sense into the pair of them and send them back to you. Every curse has a way to break. And they have true love even if they don't know it. There's very few things that are stronger than that."

  
Kara nodded, blinking back tears. Slowly, almost as if they didn't want to leave the clearing, as if they clung to one last hope that J'onn and M'gann might reappear and things might go back to the way they were before, they mounted their horses and turned their backs on the cottage.

  
It was Kara, unwillingly, who took the lead now, with Alex on her shoulder and Mon-El at her side to help guide her back down through the mountains. Brainy and Lena followed behind, their voices hushed as they discussed the affairs of the Luthor kingdom with each other. Winn, quieter and more anxious now than ever, brought up the rear. Lena was the one who had known J'onn the least, but she was making an effort to respect the pain of the others, and her eyes held a solemn look. Kara refused to think about those eyes and what they might mean; in the face of the tragedy the first curse had turned out to be, there was no time to think of the three that remained, and no time to think of the dragon. None of that seemed to matter now.

  
The three days' journey down the mountain were some of the longest three days of Kara's life. The absence of their two leaders left a hole that was impossible to fill. Kara did her best to rally herself, to take the leader's position and handle it well, but it was a struggle. Alex did what she could to support her, but she was mourning the loss of the man who had been her mentor. She had been strangely pensive lately, almost distracted, as if there were something pressing on her mind and demanding her attention. When Kara asked about it, however, her only response was that she had some things to think over. Thankfully, Mon-El proved himself to be far more dependable than Kara would have thought a Daxamite could be, taking as much of the weight from Kara's shoulders as he could, and Brainy and Lena stepped up as well. 

  
Winn's response, however, was more troubling even than Alex's. He seemed to have retreated into himself, withdrawn and worried, reminiscent of the frightened, cowering Winn they had met at the start of the quest. He tried to hide it, tried to lighten the mood wherever he could and disguise whatever was bothering him behind a smile that never quite reached his eyes, but Kara had learned to tell when he was hiding the way he felt. She left him alone, though, except for the odd sympathetic look or squeeze of the hand- Winn was the kind of person who had to be left to himself until he was ready to open up.

  
It was harder than Kara had thought, looking after all the individual needs of her little band. Sometimes it would get to be too much for her, and she would lie staring up at the stars, wondering how J'onn had managed to take this role so easily, wondering when it was that everything had gone so horrifically wrong.

  
The muted numbness lasted until they finally reached the base of the mountains, re-entering the main part of Daxam. And then, one morning, it was Mon-El who changed things.

  
"Alright," he announced suddenly. "Not to be the Daxamite who can't take anything seriously, but it's time we all wake up. We can't change what happened, and we've got other things to focus on. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to stop at the next tavern we see and have ourselves a good, hot meal- and drinks for those who are in desperate need of them, of which I'm one. And we're going to talk to each other. Everything we're feeling, we're just going to say it and get it off our chests. And I 'm not accepting arguments. I don't even care if I'm recognized or not. We can't keep living in this fog."

  
"Mon-El," Kara began, "I think that's-" She broke off, searching for a reason to refuse his suggestion, but she found nothing. In fact, he was right. "Just what we need," she finished finally.

  
And the mood did seem to lift, just a little, as they made their way down into the next village. It didn't take long to find a tavern, and Mon-El led the six of them to a table in the back of the room, where they would, for the most part, have their privacy. Evening was only just beginning to fall, and the place wasn't crowded. A handful of men in traveler's clothes sat clustered around two or three tables, and two women sat at another off to the side. None of them did more than glance up at the entrance of Kara's group, and thankfully, no one seemed to recognize Mon-El.

  
It did them good to enjoy a meal together, although they didn't exactly talk much about the loss of J'onn and M'gann. Instead, the general consensus seemed to be to talk about other things, to allow themselves to think about the days that lay ahead instead of what had happened in the past. The hole left by the loss would still be there, but they had no time to fix it. For now, they had to move on as if it wasn't there, and they would address it when the time was right.

  
Kara felt her own spirits lifting, just a little. Maybe she could handle this, she told herself. Maybe it would be alright after all. She'd gotten back something that she had been missing for a very long time- that tiny spark called hope.

  
Fate, however, could be cruel. And life had a way of waiting for that spark to take hold, and then swiftly snatching it away.

  
As they sat there talking once the meal was over, a shadow fell suddenly across the table, and a sarcastic, familiar voice rang out. "Well, if it isn't Her Royal Highness and the little band of adventurers!"

  
Brainy, Lena and Mon-El all looked completely blank, but Alex immediately tensed as Kara whirled around, looking straight into two pairs of eyes, one pair brown and one pair blue.

  
It was Winn, after a long moment, who broke the heavy silence, his voice so soft that Kara had to strain to hear him. "What are you doing here?"

  
"Looking for you," Siobhan answered, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "Did you honestly think we didn't recognize you at the ball? You may have gotten yourself all dressed up like royalty, but we knew who you really were."

  
"And now so does someone else," Lyra interjected, taking possession of an unoccupied chair. "Oh, we couldn't bring ourselves to interrupt you. You and Princess Ayla looked like you were having such a lovely time. But you left the ball so early."

  
Kara felt a cold weight of dread settle into her stomach. She knew where this story was going, and from the way Winn had turned suddenly pale, she had a feeling he did too. If she could have done something, she would have. But this was Daxam. She had no royal authority here, no way to tell them to stop.

  
"We wanted to meet the girl who'd stolen our stepbrother's heart," Siobhan said. "We had quite a nice chat with her once you left. I can see why you were taken with her. She's quite charming. A romantic, too. She really did seem to be in love with her mystery prince."

  
"So imagine her surprise," Lyra put in, "when we told her he wasn't one."

  
Kara's heart sank. She heard Alex make a half-choked sound of anger in her throat, saw Lena lean forward, brow furrowed in mingled confusion and distaste. Brainy's expression was hard and unreadable, and Mon-El, obviously still confused, gave Kara a questioning glance.

  
But the look on Winn's face was the worst. It wasn't anger. It wasn't pain. It was a look of absolute shock, as if someone had slapped him and he hadn't seen it coming.

  
"Oh, don't look so hurt," Siobhan said. Kara could have choked her. "It was for your own good, you know. And hers. It would have broken her heart to find out later, find out you hadn't told her the truth. You're beneath her. You never should have met her at all. You shouldn't even be here, and you know it."

  
Now, finally, Kara did spring to her feet. "That's not true," she said hotly. "Winn is just as much a part of this quest as any one of us."

  
"So you've told him, princess," Lyra answered, smiling a sickening smile. "But he knows the truth. We're his family. He knows the right thing to do is to come back with us. Don't you?"

  
All eyes turned to Winn. He bit his lip, blinking too quickly, and Kara saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, conflicting emotions playing across his face.

  
And then his shoulders slumped. "You're right," he said, voice hollow and hopeless. "I shouldn't have come."

  
"Winn, _no_ ," Kara pleaded. "That's not true. Please. We just lost J'onn and M'gann. We can't lose you too. We need you. _I_ need you."

  
"No," Winn said quietly. "No, Kara, you don't. You never have. You'll make it to the end of the quest just fine without me. Adventures with royalty, life-changing quests, true love...I'm not meant for that. If J'onn can't love M'gann after she lied to him, why should I have any hope that Ayla would still love me? I'm not a prince. I'm not even an adventurer. I'm just a commoner, just a servant, and...and I never should have tried to be anything else."

  
He stood up, smiling a shaky smile that was only a shadow of his real one, a smile that hurt and brought tears to Kara's eyes. "Thank you," he said. "For letting me be part of this for a while. I'll never forget it, any of it, or any of you. And I wish you well with the rest."

  
"Winn-" Brainy began. Mon-El reached out, as if to stop him, but Winn shrugged him off, stepping around the table to where Siobhan and Lyra stood.

  
"Well," Siobhan said briskly. "I suppose that settles that, then. Good luck with your little quest, Your Highness."

  
Kara barely heard her, barely heard the tavern door close behind the three of them. Tears blurred her vision, but she made no move to wipe them away. She couldn't. She had just been starting to heal from the last loss, and now this one had torn her heart open again.

  
_How much more?_ she cried out silently. _How much more am I going to have to bear? Before this quest is over, how much will I have to lose?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They say things always get worse before they get better. Unfortunately for our beloved princess, they are only going to get worse for awhile. (Also, please do not despair- we have not seen the last of Nia).
> 
> I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Third.


	23. In Which A Third Quest Begins

No one had the heart to travel much further that night. In the same familiar fog of numb disbelief that they'd felt after their first loss, they traveled an hour past the village and made camp in a secluded forest glade where no one would stumble upon them. Kara could barely form thoughts, let alone words, as she raised a hand every so often to wipe at her eyes. It hurt to be without J'onn, who had always protected them, who would have laid down his life for any one of them without a second's hesitation. It hurt to be without M'gann, who could always be depended on as the voice of reason, who always looked after the little things that no one else would have thought about. And it hurt to be without Winn, who could always find the bright side in anything, always ready with a smile or a joke, always able, somehow, to make things seem less dark than they truly were.

The guilt was tearing at her. She would never be able to forget the way he'd looked in that moment, the absolute defeat in his voice. Had he always felt that way, like he didn't truly belong, like he wasn't worthy of them? Why hadn't they seen it? Why hadn't he said something? Why did he always have to be the way he was, so desperate to make others feel better that he forgot about himself?

As she lay there, wrapped in her blanket, unable to sleep, she sorted through their conversations, trying to determine if there was anything she had said that might have led him to feel like an outsider. There was nothing. Winn had been a part of their family, and they'd all done their best to make sure he knew that. But the old saying had proved true after all- blood was thicker than water. He was so used to hearing what his family saw in him that, in the end, it was all he could see in himself.

Kara's heart hurt. The memory of Siobhan's sneering face floated back into her mind, and the tears that filled her eyes were angry ones this time. Pushing herself to a sitting position against a nearby tree, she slammed a fist against the ground for no other reason than to get the fury out. Alex stirred a little, but didn't wake up, and Brainy and Mon-El didn't move.

Lena did. She rolled over onto her stomach, staring at Kara with wide eyes before her expression changed, suddenly, to one of sympathy and understanding. Rising soundlessly to her feet, she wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and crossed the campsite quickly, sitting down beside Kara.

"I'm sorry," she said, pitching her voice low so as not to wake the others. "About Winn. I know the two of you were close."

Kara sighed. "I just don't understand. You didn't see how things were back in his village, how his family treated him. He was barely more than a slave with them. But with us, he was...he was our friend. Why would he leave what he had with us to go back to what he had with them? It doesn't make any sense."

"Family's complicated," Lena said. Her face was solemn, and Kara suddenly realized that she was doing a very similar thing to what Winn had just done- returning to a family member who may not have her best interests at heart.

"Lena, I didn't mean-" she began, but the Luthor princess waved a hand dismissively.

"It's alright, Kara. Maybe it _doesn't_ make any sense for me to go back to Lex." She glanced fondly at the sleeping forms of their companions. "If Brainy were awake, he'd see that as the perfect opportunity to jump in and start arguing the logic of it all. And he'd out-reason me, I know that for a sure thing." She glanced up at the sky, and Kara noticed her eyes once again- lovely, mismatched eyes that might easily belong to the black dragon. She forced the thought out of her mind. They'd been through enough in the past few days. Now was not the time to bring the dragon into the equation.

"But even when your family's less than ideal," Lena said, "it still means something to you. It can be hard to break those ties, even when you ought to. As impossible as it sounds, try not to worry too much about Winn. What you need to do right now is focus on the rest of your quest. Think of it. As soon as you come back to Kryptonia, the triumphant princess with four broken curses in tow, you can ride into that little village and tell Winn's family just where to get off their high horses. They can't do a thing then." She glanced sidewise at Kara with a shrewd, knowing look. "Besides, I have a feeling Winn isn't the only thing that's bothering you."

"It's not," Kara confessed. "I'm...I'm not used to being the leader. And everything's falling to pieces so fast. I mean, look at us. We're down to four people and a frog. Now that J'onn's gone, we have absolutely no one who can do a proper job of protecting us if the dragon comes back, or if Lex tries anything underhanded. We're all in grave danger, and it's up to me to lead us through it, even though I never wanted that job. This quest is changing me in a lot of ways I didn't expect, and I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge."

There was another stirring from Alex, and Kara and Lena fell quickly silent until she settled back down to sleep again. "I haven't known you long," Lena said, placing a reassuring hand on Kara's shoulder. "But even after this short time, I've seen how strong you are. You're right. This quest is pushing us all into uncharted territory, and I don't know what might happen next. But if anyone can rise to the occasion, Kara Zor-El, it's you."

* * *

It was early when Kara woke the next morning, the clearing still misty in the gray pre-dawn light. She yawned, pushing herself up blearily and blinking the sleep from her eyes.

Suddenly she felt those eyes widen. Across the campfire lay two still forms- Lena and Brainy, sound asleep. But Mon-El’s bedroll was empty.

“What in the world?” Kara turned to Alex, frowning. “Did you see where Mon-El-“

She broke off, suddenly, with a little gasp. Alex too was gone. Tucked in her place in the hollow of grass above Kara’s pillow was a scrap of parchment held down with a rock. In trembling hands, Kara picked it up and scanned its contents, putting a hand to her mouth.

**_Kara,_ **

**_I’m having Mon-El write this for me, since he insisted on going along. I’ll try to explain as quickly as possible. While we were in Daxam, I heard some of the peasants talking about a man they called the Wizard Lord. I thought they were talking about some wizard nobleman or something, but Mon-El tells me they weren’t. They were talking about Maxwell Lord, the man who put this curse on me. He’s back in Daxam. And I’m going after him._ **

**_Please don’t panic. Just let me explain. I heard you and Lena talking last night, about how hard leading this quest has been for you. I’m so proud of what you’ve done on this journey, Kara, but I’m tired of sitting back and watching. It’s time I did something to help you. It’s time I was human again. Right now we’re without protection, just like you said, and frog or no frog I’m not letting my best friend enter the Luthor kingdom without a guardsman at her side. I’m not J’onn, but I’m close, and you need me._ **

**_I’m sorry I didn’t say a proper goodbye. But Cat said I have to break my curse alone, and I knew you’d never consent to letting me face Lord by myself. (The buffoon doesn’t count. He’s only coming because it would take me too long to hop)._ **

**_Don’t worry about me, Kara. You know me. I’ll be fine. We’ll meet up at the Luthor border, and I’ll be human again. We can hand Lena off to Lex and go break your curse. That dragon won’t know what hit her, and when we’re done with that we’ll fix everything else. We’ll show J’onn and M’gann how in love they are, and then you can talk some sense into Winn while I knock his stepsisters into next Tuesday. We’ll make this all work out somehow, I promise. But I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. You’re my little sister, and I love you too much not to be by your side._ **

**_See you soon,_ **

**_Alex_ **

“No.” The word escaped Kara’s lips in a shocked whisper. Her heart pounded. “No, Alex, no. Don’t do this. You can’t-“

In a sudden panic she scrambled to her feet, calling out for her last two companions. “Brainy, Lena, get up! Get up, quick, it’s Alex!”

They came awake quickly, staring at her with confusion on their faces. It was Brainy who recovered first, taking the letter from Kara’s hand and running his eyes across the page. He frowned, but said nothing, passing the note on to Lena. Kara found herself struggling to hold back the tears. Winn and J’onn and M’gann, as dear to her as they were, didn’t hold the same place in her heart that Alex did. She had never not had Alex with her before. Without Alex, she couldn’t go on. She just couldn’t.

”Oh, my goodness.” Lena dropped the letter, coming to Kara’s side and squeezing her hand. “I’m so sorry. Do you...what do you want to do? Are we going after her?”

“Logically-“ Brainy’s voice was heavy- “we don’t have that option. Kara’s time is running out and so is Lex’s patience. Lena, we must get you home, for the sake of both your kingdom and Kara’s. Whatever happens, we cannot slow down or turn back. We have to press on if we’re to have any hope of making it to the end of this quest.”

“I don’t care about logic!” Kara exploded. “This isn’t a curse gone wrong or a family matter. This is Alex. This is my sister.”

“That doesn’t mean you ought to risk your life. Think of your kingdom.”

Kara sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, Brainy made sense. How did her cousin make these sorts of choices, denying himself in favor of his country? The dark shadow that loomed over Kryptonia- could she, in good conscience, risk that shadow’s arrival by going after Alex? And there was her own curse to reckon with, too. What if time ran out and she fell back to sleep? What then?

She made a sharp sound of frustration in her throat. “Why does magic have to be so complicated? Why can’t anything ever be easy?”

“I’m still asking that question myself,” Brainy said softly.

Kara took a deep breath, trying to steel herself. “One day,” she said. “Give me one day. They can’t have gotten far; I’ll take Mayarah and ride after them. You and Lena get things ready here and build a fire so I...so _we_ can find our way back.”

“And if you don’t find them?”

“Then we’ll move on and pray they don’t get themselves killed. There’s nothing else we can do. But I need to look, at least a little. I need to feel like I’ve done something. Maxwell Lord isn’t a man to be trifled with, especially by one little frog.”

“She’s got Mon-El,” Lena pointed out.

“Who will probably get himself recognized, if he hasn’t been already. We’ll probably have to break him out of his mother’s clutches as soon as we deal with Lord. But for Alex, it’s worth it.”

She turned in the direction of Daxam, staring out at the horizon. “For Alex,” she said softly, “I would do a great many harder things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the lateness of this chapter! But, at long last, it has arrived. And once again our band of adventurers grows smaller. The darkest hour comes quickly, dear readers. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Fourth.


	24. In Which A Forgotten Danger Turns Deadly

Without any further deliberation, they settled down to the various tasks that had to be done, the mood changing from shock to a businesslike urgency. Lena took charge of the campsite, volunteering to get a meal together for Kara, Alex and Mon-El when they returned. Brainy quickly rekindled the dying embers of last night’s fire and went off in search of more wood to build it up; this was unfamiliar country, and Kara would need the light to find her way back. At the back of her mind a little inkling of worry pushed, concern that the fire might attract enemies or thieves, or worse the dragon in the dark, but she had no time to worry about that now. All that mattered, in this moment, was Alex.

She wasted no time in saddling Mayarah, mounting up on the golden mare and spurring her into a swift canter, pausing only to call a hurried goodbye to the others. Then she was off, making her way back toward Daxam, following her sister’s trail.

They couldn’t have gotten far. That was what Kara kept telling herself as a reassuring mantra, a reminder that her efforts were not in vain. They wouldn’t have been riding as hard or as fast as she was; she could close the distance between them and have them all back at the campsite by sundown. She could do it. She had to. She couldn’t fathom the rest of the quest without Alex. She had never been without Alex at her side before.

There was guilt starting to set in too, now. She hadn’t done this for J’onn or M’gann or Winn. When they had left, she had just let it happen, barely done a thing to stop them. Should she have tried harder, done more to keep her little band of adventurers together? Should she have done for the others what she was doing for Alex, refusing to go on until she got her sister back? 

Maybe. Maybe she should have. But she couldn’t change the past, and she couldn’t set it right, not right now. Right now it was her sister who had to be her priority. The others, however and whenever they were reunited, would understand the bond between Kara and Alex, a bond like no other. They would understand that Kara had started the quest with Alex and was bound and determined to finish it the same way.

She threw caution to the winds, calling out Alex and Mon-El’s names over and over as the forest flashed by. She didn’t care who heard her or what attention she might attract. She just wanted her best friend back. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she found it hard to focus, to settle herself to the task at hand. All the emotion of everything that had happened over the past few weeks, all the feelings that she hadn’t had time to deal with properly, had reached their breaking point and were now boiling over inside her. Sadness, grief for the friends she had lost, fear for Alex, fury for the curse that had sent her life spiraling onto this wild, unexpected path- she felt it all. And she had no idea how to cope. 

So she did the only thing she knew how to do. She pushed the feelings down, telling herself that she’d work through them later, once she had brought Mon-El and Alex safely back. Right now she needed to concentrate on the mission at hand. This was the only day she would have to search; Cat had said she had a couple months before the remainder of her curse took effect, and that time was quickly running out. No matter how much she dreaded the idea of continuing the quest without Alex, she would have no other choice if she couldn’t find her today.

And if she didn’t catch up to them before they reached Daxam and found Maxwell Lord...well, Kara shuddered to think what might happen. The wizard was vengeful. Alex’s curse proved that. And no matter how brave Alex was, the form she was in meant that she wouldn’t be much of a threat to someone with so much dark magic at their fingertips. The first run-in with Lord had already gone so very wrong. The second one might be unimaginably worse.

“But it won’t be,” Kara said out loud. “It won’t be, because I won’t let it. They won’t get that far. I’ll find them, and I’ll stop them, and we’ll break Alex’s curse some other way. Together, just like we do everything else. We’ll finish this quest together.”

For a while, the statement helped to keep her spirits up. But it seemed that Alex and Mon-El had been riding faster than she thought. The day wore on, morning changing to afternoon, and still she found no sign of them. By the time dusk was falling, and sunset was painting the sky in streaks of red and rose, Kara had to admit it. She had failed. She had run out of time. She had to turn back, return to the campsite and continue to the Luthor kingdom without her sister.

She battled with herself for as long as she could, but eventually reason won out. It was the hardest thing she had ever done to turn her horse around, and she found herself wiping away tears as she rode back toward the campsite. She had never imagined something like this. When she had started the quest, she had never imagined that this would happen. The journey had already been hard, but now the road ahead looked impossible.

The sun had almost completely set by the time she spotted Brainy’s signal fire in the distance. It was a comforting sight, but also a painful one. She dreaded having to tell Brainy and Lena that she hadn’t found their missing friends, but there was no help for it. She urged Mayarah to pick up the pace again, eager to be back at the campsite before darkness fell completely.

But when she rode back into the clearing, she found the place empty. The fire was burning brightly, but there was no one beside it. All their possessions were still there, and Brainy and Lena’s horses were still tied to the same tree they had been tied to this morning, but Brainy and Lena themselves were nowhere to be seen.

Panic took her heart in its fist and squeezed. She tried desperately to force it back, telling herself that she had to remain calm. She didn’t know for sure that anything had happened. Maybe they had just wandered off.

“Brainy?” she called out. Her voice sounded louder in the silence, and more shaky than she would have liked. “Lena?”

For a single, sickening moment there was no reply. And then Brainy’s voice rang out. “Kara? Oh, thank goodness. Kara, you need to come with me. Quickly.”

Kara’s eyes widened. She had never heard Brainy speak so loudly or so hurriedly. There was alarm in his voice, a tinge of fear, though he remained for the most part as calm as ever. Once again, something was wrong. Kara was getting tired of things being wrong.

“Brainy, what is it?” she said, stepping forward to meet the huntsman as he hurried across the clearing. “Where’s Lena?”

“She’s...she’s over here. Kara, I don’t know what happened. I came back and found her like this. I didn’t know what to do, so I waited for you. I think...I think perhaps it might be magic.”

“What might be magic?” Kara asked, speeding up to match Brainy’s hurried pace. Thoughts of the dragon sprang to her mind, and this time she didn’t push them back. Had Lena done something? Showed her true Luthor colors and revealed herself as the mastermind behind the dragon in the dark? It seemed almost impossible, but what else would cause this level of alarm from someone usually as composed as Brainy was? “Brainy, just tell me what happened. What has Lena-“ 

She stopped. A cold chill ran up her spine, and a hard lump settled into her stomach as her hands flew to her mouth.

The scene that met her eyes, at first, seemed idyllic. The grassy hillside, spotted with bright little wildflowers, bathed in the last light of the setting sun. And lying on the grass, her eyes closed as if in a deep sleep, one hand outstretched, lay Princess Lena Luthor, her dark hair spilling like a silken sheet around her.

“I can’t wake her,” Brainy whispered. “I tried...I couldn’t even find a pulse. I thought you might know, since you’ve been through a sleeping curse, if this is one of them, or if she’s...” He couldn’t finish, shaking his head helplessly.

Heart in her throat, Kara darted forward and fell to her knees at Lena’s side, seizing the girl’s wrist. She was deathly still; as Brainy had said, there was no sign of life. This was no sleeping curse.

As she shifted position, leaning over Lena to try to catch just the faintest hint of a breath, her knee struck against something. Something hard, that rolled away when she struck it. She leaned down, picking the item up and examining it in confusion. An apple. A large, perfect red apple with a single bite missing.

“Brainy?” Kara called. “Where did this come from?” There were no apples in their food supply, no trees growing anywhere close. She ran a finger over the bite mark.

And just as quickly snatched her finger away as the fruit grew suddenly hot. The apple tumbled to the ground, and Kara watched in horror and fascination as the exposed flesh of the fruit turned from a soft yellow-white to a foreboding blackish green. The apple sizzled, and a little trail of violet smoke rose up from it. There could be no doubt now. This was magic. Magic of the darkest kind.

“How did this happen?” Kara asked no one in particular. “Who could have done this?”

Brainy caught his breath. “Look,” he said softly. “On the other side, see?” He reached out, gingerly, to rotate the apple. Emblazoned in gold on the ruby-red fruit were two letters in sharp, spidery script, beautiful and cruel all at once. Two L’s, intertwined together.

“Lillian,” Brainy said. “That’s Lillian’s mark. I’ve seen it a hundred times, I would know it anywhere. She must have gotten better at dark magic. She’s probably known where Lena was since we left the cottage and the dwarves’ protection. She waited until Lena was alone, like today, and then she struck. I don’t know if she disguised herself, or...or what she did. But it worked. She has her revenge.”

The words, as true as they were, made Kara sick at heart. She had almost managed to forget Lillian with all the other dangers they had faced. The exiled Luthor queen had seemed so far removed, such a distant threat, and now she proved that she had been watching all along, a peril Kara had never thought to watch for. No, this was no sleeping curse. This was deadly. This was cruel. And how someone, even a Luthor, could inflict such a terrible thing on their own adoptive daughter...it was shocking, horrific even to think about. Kara had known the way the Luthors were, but this was stooping to a level she could hardly imagine even from a family like theirs. This was not a loss like J’onn, or M’gann, or Winn. This was permanent. This was a failure that could not be reversed. From this, there was no going back. The poisoned apple was forever.

Suddenly the terrible realization dawned. Suddenly Kara understood. She fell back and dropped Lena’s hand, a little gasp escaping her lips. Brainy looked at her in concern.

“It was Lena’s,” Kara whispered. “Lena’s all along.”

“What was?” Brainy asked, and Kara turned to look at him, her voice heavy and hopeless.

“The fourth curse,” she answered. “This is the fourth curse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before thou dost drop this story, dearest readers, the bard begs thee to remember the things this story is not tagged as. There are no warnings missing, so take that as you will. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Fifth.


	25. In Which The Truth Comes Out

They sat there together for a long time. Kara and Brainy, the last adventurers standing, the last remnants of their valiant little band.

It was Kara, at last, who broke the silence, sniffling a little as she reached out to take Lena’s cold, still hand in her own. “You have to ride for Nia,” she said, her voice rough and shaky with unshed tears.

Brainy looked puzzled. “Nia? Why?”

“If anyone can...can bring Lena back, it’s Nia. You know the mountains. I saw you watching when Mon-El was guiding us; if anyone can find the way, it’s you. You know how to find the dwarves’ cottage and one person travels faster than two. Please, Brainy.”

He reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Kara, you don’t have to beg me. I’ll go. I don’t know how much Nia can do, but you’re right, she’s our best chance. But I confess, I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone. You’re still a princess. You’re still Sleeping Beauty. What happens if you fall asleep again?”

“Then you’ll find me. I’m staying right here. With her.” She gestured listlessly toward Lena’s still form. “I can’t leave her.”

“And the dragon? What if she comes?”

Kara laughed a little, a sad, regretful laugh. “Funny enough, I thought Lena was the dragon.” She hadn’t meant to make her suspicions known, but what was the point of hiding them now that Lena was gone? And Brainy didn’t seem surprised by them either. Of course. Kara should have expected that if anyone else would have made the connection between Lena’s eyes and the dragon’s, it would be Brainy. Brainy never missed anything. But in this case, the similarity was nothing more than pure coincidence. “Don’t worry about the dragon, Brainy. J’onn taught us their weak spots. I’ll hide from her if she comes. But I doubt she will. We haven’t seen any sign of her in a long time.”

Brainy nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. To his credit, though, he didn’t argue further. He just crossed the clearing and mounted up with quick, sure movements, obviously not intending to waste any time. “I’ll be back,” he said softly. Kara nodded mutely. There was nothing to say, really. Who knew whether he was riding off on a fool’s errand? Who knew if there was anything Nia could do? This was their only course of action, and it might very well prove to be futile.

Brainy tapped his heel against his horse’s side, glancing back once or twice at Kara with a look of concern as he turned toward the mountains from which they had come. As he vanished into the distance, Kara sat staring after him, holding Lena’s hand, until he was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. But eventually the sound of his horse’s hoofbeats faded, and Kara found herself completely and utterly alone.

She had never been so alone before. The world seemed too big, too vast, and she felt hopelessly lost in it. This was not what she had counted on, not how she expected her quest to end. The adventure she had craved and daydreamed about as a little girl was so much harder when it was real. She had sacrificed so much, lost so much since the start of this quest. And now that she had nothing to do, nothing to think about, nothing to focus on but the pain of that loss, the emotions that came surging into her heart threatened to overwhelm her.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to be back, safe in Kryptonia where she never had to worry about curses or dragons or magic ever again. She was beginning to wish she had never come on this quest at all. There were so many things she missed, so many things she would have given anything to have in that moment. Her cousin’s gentle blue eyes. Alex’s teasing sarcasm that had always made her laugh. M’gann’s motherly tenderness, J’onn’s solid, dependable strength. Mon-El’s well-intentioned bumbling. Winn’s laughter like a ray of sunshine. Lena’s lovely smile. All were things that she had lost. All were things that she would have given anything to have again.

And where were they now? What had her quest gotten them? What was the price her friends and family had paid for following her into the unknown? Her cousin would soon be facing an incredible danger he didn’t even know was coming, and who knew whether he and the kingdom would be able to withstand it. J’onn and M’gann had found true love, and then had it snatched away from them in the cruelest and most heart-wrenching of ways. Winn was trapped in servitude to his family once again. Alex- Kara’s best friend, Kara’s _sister_ \- was walking straight into the hands of her mortal enemy. And Lena...Lena...

That was what the quest had gotten them. That was what Kara had achieved. Nothing but pain, and heartbreak, and tragedy anywhere she looked. No way to turn things around. No hope left.

Her hand closed on a chunk of rock at her side, and she stared at it for a moment before the muscles of her face tightened. She took the rock in an iron grip and threw it as hard as she could at the trunk of a tree, listening to the dull, hollow thud. She followed it up with another and another, faster and faster, hurling rocks and clods of dirt as she screamed her fury into the wide, empty stillness all around her.

When at last she stopped, sobbing for breath, that stillness weighed on her like a smothering fog. Her heart felt as empty as an eggshell and as heavy as a pail full of water. Too much. It was all too much. Too much to bear, too much to take, too much to handle. She had been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and it had finally brought her to her knees. There was nothing she had left to lose.

Kara collapsed back against the trunk of another tree, leaning her head against the rough bark and closing her eyes. She felt suddenly exhausted from her fit of fury, from the trauma of the morning, from everything else that had been buried deep inside her, waiting to explode. 

But for once she didn’t push it away. For once she didn’t bury it. She let it come. She let herself feel. Anger. Fear. Grief. Resentment. Though everything she knew was screaming at her to shut the door on those emotions, she flung that door wide and welcomed them. For a moment she sat there, glassy-eyed and dazed with the intensity of all those feelings, unsure how to react. And then, with a little, sharp, shuddering gasp, she drew her knees up to her chest, buried her face in her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break.

She didn’t exactly know what she was crying for, whether it was one thing in particular or all of them at once. The only thing she knew was that she was finally letting herself stop being a princess, stop being Sleeping Beauty, stop being a leader. She was letting herself be human. She was letting herself be Kara. 

Eventually, once the tears stopped flowing, she found to her surprise that she felt steadier, more self-assured than she had in weeks. The situation hadn’t changed, but it no longer felt as if it was crushing her. She would be alright. She would make it through this. Somehow, some way, this would all come right. There was still hope somewhere, even if she didn’t see it just yet.

She repeated the words in her mind over and over and over until she started to believe them. It wasn’t over yet. The quest was not yet finished. Cat had mentioned the darkest hour, hadn’t she? This was the darkest things could get. Kara had nothing left to lose. After this, things could only get better.

But not yet. They would not get better just yet. There was one thing Kara had forgotten, and she remembered it suddenly when her ears suddenly caught the sound in the distance. The last thing that could possibly have gone wrong.

Distant thunder, growing closer. Brainy had been right to worry, and Kara had been wrong to reassure him. The dragon in the dark was returning. And this time, there was no one except Kara to face it. Just like Nia’s dream had foretold, she would battle the dragon alone.

But surprisingly, she felt no fear, only a deep and settled calm. She was ready. There was nothing she could do for the others, not right now. In the end of it all, her own curse was the one she had to fix, the only one she could face. All the rest would come later. This was the curse she had to break.

She crossed the clearing to where her saddlebag rested against a boulder, removing her dagger and holding it in a ready position. Then she walked to the bottom of the hillside to ensure that Lena would be out of the line of fire, and she waited for the dragon.

The creature’s shadow blotted out the sun as it passed over her. She looked up at it, taking in every detail of the beast as she never had before. The glistening black scales, the whip-like tail, the massive wings spread wide. This was a creature meant to make her afraid. It wasn’t working. For whatever reason, there was no fear left in her now. She had had her moment of emotion, and now she summoned her strength. She only felt determination. Resolve. Like her cousin before her, she was ready to be a dragon-slayer. She was ready to do what was right. _This has to be done. So I have to do it. Nothing else matters._

The dragon, realizing that Kara wasn’t running, turned sharply and circled back around. Kara never moved. The beast swooped down, landing behind her, the ground shaking with the impact. Kara didn’t turn, didn’t look at it. She remembered the first time the dragon had shown up, how it had seemed uncertain about whether or not to attack. Well, now she was forcing it to make up its mind. It would have to be the first to make a move. She braced herself for the heat of the dragon’s fire, tensing her muscles to drop to the ground.

But instead of breathing flame, the beast made a strange sound in its throat. Almost...almost like a sigh. There was a sharp crackle, like a bolt of lightning had struck, and the same bitter, smoky smell that had filled the air when Kara picked up the cursed apple. It was the smell of dark magic.

And then suddenly Kara understood. Suddenly she knew. All the pieces fell together in her mind, and she drew in her breath sharply, but there was no real shock. Just... a realization. She recognized what it was that was so familiar about the dragon. Nia’s words came back to her, and now she realized what they meant. _You are closer to the dragon than you think._ She didn’t know why the curse had been laid on her, what purpose it had been meant to serve.

But she knew who was behind it. Maybe, deep down, she had always known. Still she didn’t turn around.

After a moment, a voice came from behind her. A voice that, like the dragon, was familiar. “I’ve been waiting for you, little one. I was hoping we might get a moment alone.”

“I was hoping the same thing,” Kara said. “So that I could ask you why. Why you put the curse on me. Why you did all this.”

Now she did turn, coming face to face with the dragon in the dark, the dragon in disguise. “I don’t understand,” she said, and her blue eyes blazed. “Why, Aunt Astra?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, dearest readers, is that. The bard apologizes for the lateness of this chapter; as thou canst see, it was rather significant and I wished to get it just right. Lots of emotions in this one, but they were necessary. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Sixth.


	26. In Which The Curse Is Explained

Astra looked so similar to the way Kara remembered her. So similar to Kara’s mother. The only differences were the white streak in Astra’s brown hair and the clothing she wore, clothing Alura would never have chosen. Armor. Shimmering black armor like the scales of the dragon, and a pendant from which dangled a glowing green stone. Green, like the dragon’s eyes that had never belonged to Lena. Other than that, Astra was the same woman Kara remembered from her childhood. She had indeed been closer to the dragon than she thought. The dragon, the person behind her curse, was her own flesh and blood.

They both stood still and silent, taking in the sight of the other. It was Astra, finally, who broke the silence.

“It almost makes me regret it, looking at you. You have your mother’s eyes.” There was such love in her tone, so very like the beloved aunt Kara had once had. The beloved aunt who had given her a curse that shook her world. None of this made any sense.

“I always wondered what happened to you,” Kara said. “I was so little I didn’t remember much of the details. All I remember is you and Mama getting in some kind of argument, and how tense things were after that. And then I woke up one morning and you were gone, and Mama told me you weren’t coming back. She never told me why. No one ever told me anything else. It was like you had never existed. But I never forgot. I remembered how you would teach me about the stars. You would tell me all their names, show me how to find them. And then you would tell me about all the magical creatures in our kingdom. Elves and mermaids and fairies and phoenixes. I loved those stories. I loved you, Aunt Astra. So I don’t understand why we’re standing here now. I don’t understand why you did all this.”

Astra laughed, hard and bitter. “Of course. Of course you don’t. I didn’t think they’d tell you the whole of it. There’s so much you don’t know, little one.”

“So tell me,” Kara said. “After everything you’ve done, everything you’re still doing, you at least owe me an explanation.” She was trying to hold back her anger, but her head was spinning. Everything she had lost to the curse, everything she had had to do on this quest...it was almost impossible to believe that Astra could have done it all. And yet the proof was here, staring her in the face.

Astra drew a long sigh. “It was never about you, little one. I truly did love you. If I had had a choice, I would never have brought you into it.”

“But you did.”

“Yes. It was about your mother, really. We were living in a magical kingdom, Kara. You must understand that. And as perfect and peaceful as Kryptonia may have seemed, magic always comes coupled with dangers. I was one of the only people to recognize that. Me and your uncle.”

“And that was why you and Mama fought.”

“Yes. That was why. And finally I made up my mind that if the people of Kryptonia would not see the danger in magic, I would show the danger of magic to them. Non and I paid a great price to learn the ways of magic. Dark magic.”

Non. Kara barely remembered her uncle, Astra’s husband; he had not been born royalty and always seemed sullen, sneering at the glittering luxury of the court. And he’d never gotten along well with her parents, or Kal’s parents either for that matter. Non was the kind who saw enemies everywhere he turned and never trusted anyone.

“Who taught you dark magic?” she whispered. From what Cat had said about her curse, it was not the kind of thing that just any magic-wielder could have cast. Wherever Astra and Non had come by their knowledge, it would have to be from someone incredibly powerful.

“You wouldn’t have known her. She kept herself very well hidden. At least she did before Kal took the throne. Her name was Indigo. She revealed herself when your cousin rose to power; she always thought he was too self-righteous, too noble to be king.” Astra shook her head. “The odds were against it, but Kal won that fight.”

It took a moment before Kara realized what her aunt meant. Her mouth dropped open. “Indigo was the dragon? The one Kal saved Lois from?”

“Is that her name? I wouldn’t know. She was only bait for the trap. I never thought he’d marry her. But yes, little one, Indigo was that dragon, just like I am the dragon that’s been following you. There are no real dragons left, not anymore, at least as far as we know. Any dragon you come across, you can be reasonably certain it’s a warlock in disguise. It keeps us hidden from the fairies’ sight. They don’t suspect a thing.”

“And Uncle Non? Is he a dragon too?”

“When he chooses. But Non’s plans are more subtle. There’s a wizard in Daxam he’s developed quite a vicious rivalry with.”

Maxwell Lord. Of course he’d have to be mixed up with the dark side of Kara’s family. Apparently Alex’s curse wasn’t only about her refusal to accept Maxwell as a suitor. That, however, was neither here nor there. Kara shook her head to clear it, forcing herself to focus.

“So you learned dark magic,” she said. “Then what? Where do I come into it all?”

“Then we put our plan into action. We began casting random little spells to show the people how dangerous magic really was. A magical lightning-storm there, a will-of-the-wisp to lead travelers astray there. Just enough to get the point across, that’s all it was supposed to be. There were never supposed to be casualties, but Non...your uncle doesn’t exactly have the strongest restraint. Your mother was furious when she found out.”

Kara could only imagine that. She remembered clearly Alura’s strong sense of justice. Now she knew the reason behind the shouting that had echoed through the palace, shouting she had never understood as a little girl. The servants had whisked her away to another part of the palace and distracted her until she forgot, but still, in the back of her mind, she had always wondered.

Astra’s voice was soft, but there was bitterness deep within it, and her eyes were distant and far away. “Alura was so furious,” she said, “that she wanted us exiled for our crimes. It didn’t matter that I was her twin sister. She didn’t care that we had done what we did for the sake of the kingdom. She didn’t care that we were right.” Astra clenched her fist, and for the first time Kara noticed the twisted black wand she held in her other hand. “In your mother’s mind, little one, the ends did not justify the means.”

To a point, Kara understood her mother’s reasoning. What Astra and Non had done was wrong. But at the same time, magic was dangerous. Kara knew that firsthand. It didn’t excuse Astra’s actions, but it made them a little easier to understand.

At least, the actions that Astra had explained up to this point. Kara was still struggling to understand the part she played in all of this.

“That’s why you left,” she said.

“Yes. We weren’t given a choice, not even a chance to say goodbye. Kal’s father was king then, and Alura convinced him that it should be handled as soon as possible. She didn’t want the people to think that the royals favored their own. Any commoner that had done what we did would have been exiled immediately, and so we earned the same fate. Non and Indigo and I, we lost everything that day. Everything we’d ever known, everything we’d ever loved.” Her gaze flicked back to her niece, and Kara knew, in that moment, that she had been one of the things her aunt had grieved losing. _So why the curse?_ she asked silently. _Why the curse, if she loved me?_

“We all coped with it in different ways,” Astra said. “Your uncle just wallowed in his bitterness, nursing his hatred for our family. Indigo kept her eyes on Kryptonia, watching for a chance to strike back. She always said it would come someday, and it did with Kal. It just didn’t end the way it was supposed to. And he never knew- he still doesn’t know- who he was really fighting that day.”

“And you?” Kara asked.

“Me? I just thought. I learned. I studied magic until I was stronger than your uncle and Indigo put together. And it was then that I realized. I’d been targeting the wrong people. It wasn’t the commoners who needed to see the danger of magic. It was the royalty. It was your mother.”

Astra drew a long, shuddering breath, and the muscles of her face tightened. But when she spoke again her voice was light and conversational, as if she was purposely trying to keep the emotion out of it. “So I resolved to find the perfect curse, the perfect way to avenge myself on my sister. Something that would show her how right I was. It took me years, but I found the sleeping curse. I didn’t know when to use it, how best to prove my point, until suddenly I remembered you. You were turning eighteen in a week. There was nothing better to take from Alura, nothing else that would have hurt so much to lose. I know that because of how much it hurt me to lose you. How much worse, then, would it be for your mother?”

Kara closed her eyes, fighting to keep back the tears. It had never been about her at all. She was nothing more than a pawn in Astra’s plot for revenge.

“Maybe I might have reconsidered,” Astra said. “But Non and Indigo somehow found out what I was doing. They convinced me not to back down. To cast the curse. And so I did. I didn’t know your parents were already gone by then. Indigo-“ Astra’s voice tightened in a way that made Kara suspect her aunt had not entirely been grieved by her companion’s demise- “chose to withhold that information. It was never meant to harm you, Kara, not really. You’d still have your life to live after. You’d still wake up.”

“I did wake up,” Kara said. “Earlier than I should have. Why?” She hoped against hope that her aunt would say she had had second thoughts, that it was Astra who had been behind the miracle.

But Astra shook her head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t meant to happen. No one interfered, no one woke you. You woke yourself. It seems, my dear little niece, that you are stronger than magic. You decided that the world needed you back in it. So you woke up. Although I suppose it may have been your fairy godmother who gave you a little prompting.”

Cat. It would be just like Cat to do that, to whisper into Kara’s sleeping mind that it was time for her to wake up.

“But what she doesn’t know,” Astra continued, “is that I still want vengeance. Kryptonia still hasn’t learned its lesson. I can bring down the rest of the curse in a moment. Show that foolish, self-secure little kingdom how wrong they were about me.” Her eyes flashed green, hard and cold and no longer human. The dragon’s eyes. Perhaps Astra might have regretted it. But the desire for revenge was still strong. Astra was still dangerous.

Kara drew a deep breath, forcing herself to stay calm. And then she opened her hand and let the dagger drop from her fingers. “So finish it,” she said. “Finish the curse. If vengeance means more than flesh and blood, then look me in the eyes and take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bard does not much to say on this one, dearest readers. It doth explain itself. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Seventh.


	27. In Which The Quest Is Not In Vain

Astra’s eyes went wide, and then flashed dragon-green, hard and cold. She opened her mouth to speak, but Kara beat her to it. The sound of her own voice surprised her; it was steely and even and fearless, everything she’d thought, just a few minutes ago, she would never be again.

“You already tried, didn’t you?” she demanded. “You tried to take revenge. The first time we fought the black dragon, she had a chance to kill me. To kill all of us. And she didn’t take it. She just stood there, no flame, no movement, nothing. I looked back at her face, and what I saw? It made no sense. Except now it does, now that I know she was you all along. Conflict. She looked like she was making a decision. And it looked like that decision was tearing her apart.”

Astra kept her face emotionless, but Kara caught the flicker that passed across her eyes. She had no idea what she was even trying to do, what the purpose of telling her aunt all this was, but it was too late to stop now. The words were pouring out of her, all the things she hadn’t even known she needed to say.

“I thought maybe there was someone controlling her, and she was trying to fight them off. But that wasn’t it, was it? That was all you. You could have taken revenge, you could have ended everything right then and there. But you didn’t. And if revenge is so important to you, so important that you would cast a sleeping curse on your own flesh and blood, on the one person who actually missed you, who wanted you back-“ Kara’s voice broke a little, and some of Astra’s impassive mask shifted- “then I want to know why you didn’t take it when you had the chance. Why you hesitated.”

The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Astra swallowed hard, opened her mouth and then closed it again. She raised the wand, almost defensively, but the look on her face was...lost. Confused, as if she was only just realizing the full significance of everything she had done.

“Can’t answer?” Kara said. “I think I can. I think, maybe, deep down, you’re not who you’re pretending you are. I don’t think you’re the dragon all the way yet. There’s some part of you that hasn’t changed, that hasn’t gone dark, that doesn’t want any of this. You’ve convinced yourself that’s what you want, and you’ve let Non convince you too. But that’s not really the truth. You’re not really what you’ve tried to become. I may not be seeing any evidence of it right now, but I saw it that day with the dragon. Deep down, under all that hate, all that anger, there’s a part of you that’s still the aunt I remember, the aunt I love. There’s a part of you somewhere that’s still good.”

Astra stepped forward threateningly, her face darkening again. “If that’s what you think, little niece, you’re a greater fool than I thought you were. The world is not all the way you paint it, not all goodness and light.”

“Oh, I know that,” Kara shot back. “And even if I didn’t know it before, even if I was just the naive little princess who thought everything was a fairy-tale adventure with a happy ever after promised at the end...do you think I haven’t learned differently on this quest? I’ve seen the way the world really is, Aunt Astra. I’ve seen a lot more of it than I ever thought I’d have the chance to see. I’ve met good people, like my friends, and bad people-“ she thought of Lex, and Lillian, and Siobhan and Lyra and the others, though she didn’t say their names- “and people in between. I know not everything comes up roses all the time, and it certainly hasn’t been doing that for me lately.” She had to let herself smile at that, thinking about just how many things had gone wrong recently. “But do you know what? That taste of the real world has shown me that while things might not always be goodness and light, there’s enough goodness and light in the world to make the rest of it bearable. So I’m choosing to believe that there might a little goodness and light left somewhere inside you, too.”

She reached out with her foot, finding the dagger she had dropped and kicking it even farther away from her. “Of course,” she said, “you could always prove me wrong, if vengeance really is what you really want. But you don’t get to hide behind the dragon while you do it. You can wave that wand and send me right back to sleep for a hundred years, but you’ll have to look me right in the eyes to do it. You’ll have to look right at me, and you’ll see what I am and I’ll see what you are. No more secrets, no more disguises, nothing. Just the two of us. And I’m not going to lift a finger to stop you either. I won’t run. I won’t fight back. If you want to do it, you’ll have to make the first move. I won’t justify it. I won’t give you a reason to do it, an excuse so you can tell yourself that you had no choice. It’s all in your hands, Aunt Astra. The choice is up to you. If there really is nothing but darkness left inside you, you’re going to have to prove it.”

Astra’s eyes flickered again, from the bright unnatural green to their usual hazel color and back again. Kara watched her aunt’s face carefully, praying she hadn't been wrong, that the quest did not all end here. There they both stood, all the curses revealed and the truth exposed, nowhere left to hide. Kara kept her hands at her sides, her eyes locked with Astra’s, making no move to defend herself from whatever her aunt's decision might turn out to be.

Astra’s face contorted, and for one moment Kara felt a stab of fear that she had been wrong, that Astra was truly too far gone.

But then her face softened. She laughed a little, softly and sadly, shaking her head.

“Stronger than magic,” Astra whispered. “Stronger than a curse. Stronger than anything that might try to hold you. That’s what you are, Kara Zor-El.” She drew in a deep breath.

And lowered the wand. The green in her eyes faded, and then vanished completely; she was blinking quickly, almost as if she was trying not to cry. A faint smile hovered on her face. “So I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me,” she whispered, “that you’re stronger than me, too.”

“Aunt Astra-“ Kara began, now blinking back her own tears. But Astra held up a hand.

“I thought revenge was what I wanted,” she said. “All the things I’ve done in the pursuit of it...” She shook her head again. “You were the worst, Kara. I regretted your curse the most. So many times I almost took it back, woke you up. I could have done it, you know, any time I chose to. But it turns out I didn’t need to do it. You did it yourself. You decided magic wasn’t strong enough to hold you. You decided that the world needed you back in it and you took matters into your own hands. When I looked at you, that first time, I was ready to finish off your friends and tell you everything before I sent you back to sleep. I was angry. Here you were, traipsing all over the country I’d been banished from with no idea what your mother had done. But then you looked me in the eyes, and I couldn’t do it. I had a war inside my heart then and there, and you won it. You were so brave, so strong, so hopeful. No matter what was thrown at you it could never break you. It never turned you bitter like it did me. I couldn’t believe that would be possible, for someone to have such a good heart. So I followed you. Sometimes I made up my mind to finish what I’d started; once I even tried to do it. That was the day you hid in the cave. But you never changed, Kara. You were better than your mother, better than me. Nothing ever changed you, nothing could ever steal your light. And even now, knowing it was me, you still see the best in me.” Astra laughed a little. “I can’t hate you, little one. Not anymore. Not even for Alura’s sake. You’re stronger than I will ever be, and I know when I’m defeated. If vengeance costs me you, I don’t want it.” She flicked the wand, just slightly. “There. The curse is over. You’re free.”

And that was all it took. There was no blinding flash of light, no crash of thunder or burst of flame. Just a feeling of incredible relief, as if a weight that Kara hadn’t known was there had now fallen from her shoulders forever. A weightlessness, a strength that she had never felt before. In that moment, she felt as if she could fly. 

It was such a simple statement from Astra and an even simpler action, but to Kara it meant more than words could say. She had tried her best to ignore the curse, to pretend it wasn’t there, but it had always lingered in the back of her mind, always pressured her, a ticking clock reminding her that she was running out of time. And now it was gone. The clock was silent. Now there was no need to fear losing everything she loved. The object of her quest had been reached. The long, hard, arduous, wonderful journey, her part of it at least, had come to its end at last.

For a moment she stood there, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what had just happened. The first curse, her curse, broken. A sign that not everything was hopeless, that there was always a speck of light if you knew where to find it. Free. She was free.

She reacted not as the leader of a quest, not as a princess or even as Sleeping Beauty. She reacted just as the long-ago Kara who had never heard of curses might have. She darted forward and threw her arms around her aunt, squeezing as tightly as she could manage while they both laughed breathlessly. 

“Uncle Non wanted vengeance,” Kara said. “What will he say when he finds out you’ve released me?”

Astra tossed her hair scornfully over her shoulder. “Truth be told, I don’t care. He can say what he likes about it, it won’t change the facts. I can magic him under the table any day. And for you, Kara, now that I have you back, I’d do much worse.”

“You won’t change all in one day,” Kara said. “You still gave a lot of yourself to the darkness. And it won’t be easy to take it back.”

“I know. I know it won’t. I’m sure there will be moments when I want to tear someone apart and moments when I almost give in. Nothing worth doing ever comes easily. But when those darker moments do come, I’ll remember you. If I live to be as strong as you are, Kara Zor-El, maybe this will all have been worth something.”

Kara wrapped her aunt in an embrace again, half giggling and half sobbing all at once. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For not giving in. For breaking the curse.”

“I didn’t break it, Kara,” Astra answered. “You did. It was yours to break.”

She drew back, holding Kara at arm’s length as if she was seeing her for the first time. “And now, little one,” she said softly, “there are other curses waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very dialogue-heavy chapter, beloved readers. At first I had planned a battle scene between our princess and her aunt, but ‘tis more in the spirit of Supergirl to solve things with a hopeful speech. A battle, for the curious, is coming later.
> 
> And thus the first curse is broken, my friends. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Eighth!


	28. In Which A Sacrifice Is Made

Kara stood in the clearing, watching as the form of the black dragon faded into the distance for the last time. Though her own part of the quest was over, she still had her friends to save, and three more curses to break. And so, newly reconciled with each other, she and Astra had said their goodbyes. Kara had promised to explain things to Kal once she returned home, and possibly convince him to offer Astra some leniency. But in the meantime, Astra had other tasks to accomplish- explaining herself to her vengeance-bent warlock of a husband, for one thing.

But she hadn't left without leaving something to make up for everything she had done- a gift. And the gift she had chosen meant more to Kara than anything else would have. In fact, it was a gift that might save a life someday. 

To someone who didn't know what it was, it would have looked commonplace, almost worthless. It was nothing but a crumpled roll of old parchment which unrolled to show a detailed map of Kryptonia and the surrounding countries. But its real value didn't lie in what it was, but what it could do. If Kara said something to the map, the map would show her exactly where that something was. And if she tapped her finger twice against a location on the map and closed her eyes, the map, in a flash of magic, would take her there.

The value of such a gift was something she couldn't easily put into words. She had no way of knowing if the dark shadow Cat had foreseen was Astra, or something else. Maybe she had removed the darkness by reconciling with her aunt, but then again maybe she hadn't. And thanks to the map, the journey back to Kryptonia, if something did happen, would take seconds instead of weeks. It was a weight off Kara's mind, knowing she could return to her kingdom if they needed her. With that worry out of the way, she was free to turn her attention to breaking the three remaining curses and reuniting her friends.

As the black dragon finally vanished into the blue sky, Kara let out a long, shuddering breath. She had never before felt the way she did right now. She felt more than strong, more than ready to face what lay ahead. In this moment, she felt invincible.

She turned and made her way down the hillside, sitting down beside the Luthor princess' still, silent form. It was another relief to know that the dragon had never been Lena, that Lena wasn't like her brother. Though her friendship with Lena had grown over the past few weeks, the possibility that Lena might betray her had always hovered in the back of her mind. Now it was gone, and she was free to love Lena for who she was instead of fearing who she might be.

And thanks to Astra, she now chose to believe that this curse, too, could be broken. If hope and optimism had broken one curse, there was no reason to think it couldn't break another one. Until they had tried every option to bring Lena back, Kara refused to accept that she was truly gone. Reaching out and running her fingers over Lena's hand, Kara unrolled the map.

"Show me Brainy," she told it. "And Nia, while you're at it if you don't mind." She wondered if Brainy had managed to make it to the dwarves' cottage, or if he was still on his way.

The map answered the question for her. A tiny puff of smoke rose up from the wrinkled parchment, and words began to write themselves across the page as if some invisible hand was drawing them with an invisible quill. Two small squares popped up directly beside each other, each with an ornate banner over it, bearing the names of Brainy and Nia. They were together, then. Brainy had at least made it that far, and he'd done it more quickly than Kara would have thought possible.

In fact, the two squares were still moving quickly, speeding across the map at a surprising pace. "Huh," Kara said. "That's odd." She raised her voice and spoke to the map. "Show me where I am."

The map obeyed her, adding another square with her own name emblazoned above it. There was no doubt about it; Brainy and Nia were making their way quickly towards her. Whether there was anything they could do for Lena once they got there...well, that remained to be seen, but Kara would cross that bridge if they came to it. Until then, there was nothing to do but wait for the dwarf and the huntsman to arrive.

And she wasn't kept waiting long. Before the afternoon had quite turned to evening, the two horses swept into the clearing, and Nia and Brainy dismounted to make their way towards where she sat beside Lena.

"That was quick," Kara observed.

"I magicked us," Nia explained. "I knew there wasn't any time to waste." She knelt next to the fallen princess, examining her with a practiced eye as if she was used to dealing with curses.

But Brainy was watching Kara, a curious look on his face.

"Something happened, didn't it?" he asked. "You're different."

"I'm not. Not really."

"But you are. It's like...it's like you've grown up, somehow. When I left you looked like you didn't know if you could handle everything this quest has thrown at you. Now it's as if you could handle all that and more."

Kara had to laugh at how well he had summed it up. "When you put it that way, maybe I am different. I fought the dragon, Brainy. I broke my curse. I'm free."

There were very few times when Kara had seen Brainy surprised by something, but she saw it now. "You did what?" Brainy looked around, as if he was expecting to see the vanquished dragon somewhere in the clearing. "Kara-"

"It wasn't that kind of a battle, Brainy," Kara explained. "And Nia, you were right about me being close to the dragon. The dragon in the dark was my aunt."

Now both of them looked stunned. As Nia finished looking Lena over, learning everything she could about the curse, Kara explained the whole story, everything that had taken place since that morning. When she had finished, Brainy shook his head slowly, as if he could barely comprehend what she had told him.

"If it were anyone else, I wouldn't believe it," he said. He offered her a rare smile. "But if there's anyone who could get through to a dragon, Kara Zor-El, it would be you."

"I didn't know if it would work," Kara confessed. "But I had to try. It was the only thing I could do."

"And you did it," Brainy said. "So that's over with, then. We're finished with the dragon in the dark, and the first curse is broken. The question now is whether we can break the second. Nia?"

"It's not good," Nia said. She was holding the apple in her hand, turning it over and over as she spoke. "I've never seen anything like this. Since Lena's mother was exiled, she must have put every spare moment into creating this curse. This is the darkest kind of magic, and the strongest too. It's far too strong for me to break alone, even though I'm a dreamer. I doubt even a full-blooded fairy could handle this."

"So Cat wouldn't be able to do something."

"If she was Lena's fairy godmother, she might be able to offer us some insight into whether the curse has a weak spot. But she's not. Fairies only serve one nation, and Cat's is Kryptonia, not the Luthor kingdom. Unless Lena's fairy godmother is inclined to show up, we can't depend on any help from that area."

Kara sighed. There had to be a way. She refused to give up hope. If there was one thing that the past twenty-four hours had taught her, it was that there was always hope somewhere. And that hope could accomplish incredible things.

"Is there anything we can do?" she asked. "Anything, Nia. Any option we have, no matter how unlikely it is to work."

"There are two of them, actually," Nia said. "One, we get our hands on Lillian's spellbook somehow and craft a countercurse. And that's assuming she even has a spellbook and didn't just make this whole thing up in her head. Besides, that would take weeks to finish, even if there was a spellbook and we managed to steal it."

"I don't see that happening," Brainy said. "What's the other option?"

"It's more dangerous," Nia said. "And there's nothing that'll guarantee it works. The dwarves have a legend. Curses are designed for one specific person. They're not like spells, they can't just be thrown at whoever you please. It's targeted. So the dwarves say that if another person willingly takes on the curse, willingly decides to share it with the victim, the curse's power will break. It only works on the strongest, darkest curses. And it only works if whoever takes on the curse is almost as strong as the magic used to cast it."

There was a long silence, and then Kara shoved her hair out of her face and took a step towards Lena.

"What are you doing?" Nia asked.

"Isn't it obvious? I have to be the one who takes the curse."

"No," Brainy said immediately, reaching out a hand as if to stop her. "Kara, you're the princess of an entire nation that's depending on you to come home. This isn't just another sleeping curse. This could kill you. Besides, you barely know her. If anyone should do it, it's me."

"But you can't, Brainy," Kara said. "It has to be me. Stronger than magic, that's what Aunt Astra said. With any luck, I'll be stronger than this magic too. If I can wake myself from a curse that was meant to last a hundred years, I can bring Lena back."

"Kara-"

"Brainy. You know this is how it has to be. And we don't have time to argue, so let's not waste any time. Give me the apple, Nia."

The Dreamer looked hesitant, but Kara held out a hand, and at last she placed the cursed fruit into it, her face paling with worry. "If this goes wrong," she whispered, "there's no going back. Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure I have to do it," Kara answered. She didn't give herself any more time to think about it. She raised the fruit to her mouth and bit into it.

At first it tasted like a regular apple, crisp and sweet. And then, all in a rush, the sweetness disappeared and Kara's mouth filled with the bitter, charred, smoky taste of dark magic. The world spun for a moment, and a cold chill raced up her spine. She felt rooted to the spot, her mind suddenly numb, but she forced herself to swallow.

For a single terrifying second, everything went black. But then, slowly, Kara's vision cleared, and the ground seemed solid under her feet again. She didn't move, barely even breathed, watching Lena's face for the slightest sign that it had worked. She was still standing here, wasn't she? She had shared the curse. It had to break. Was she imagining it, or was a little hint of color seeping slowly into Lena's cheeks?

It wasn't her imagination. The princess' eyes fluttered open, dazed and bleary, as if she had been ripped from some deep dream. Nia let out her breath in a rush, and Brainy gave a little cry of relief.

Kara flung the apple away from her, kneeling down at Lena's side and taking her hand. "What...what happened?" Lena's voice came out rough, and she swallowed hard.

"You were under the fourth curse," Kara answered. "And now it's the second one we've broken, after mine."

"Curse? I don't remember a curse. Just the old woman...with the apples..."

"Not an old woman," Brainy said. "Your mother."

Lena's mouth formed a little O, and she stared at the huntsman for a moment as if struggling to believe him. But then her gaze fell on the poisoned fruit, and her face hardened as her eyes filled with the realization of the truth. She collapsed back against the ground. "Tell me everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus another curse is broken. The bard has had this scene planned for a long time. It just felt like something Kara would do, and a good way to break Lena’s curse. From here, everything gets even more exciting. I have been sowing the seeds of the next big event since the beginning of the story, and I cannot wait to share it with you, dearest readers. I shall return soon with Part the Twenty-Ninth!


	29. In Which Things Are Not As They Seem

It took Kara longer than she expected to explain things to Lena. She wanted to know everything that had taken place since her curse struck, and she was especially interested in every little detail of the conversation with Astra.

"I never would have imagined that," she said when at last Kara had finished. "And only you could have done it, Kara." She gave a little sigh. "It would never have worked with my family. Lillian was lost to the darkness long ago, as she's now proven. And Lex...well, I suppose I'll find out soon enough, won't I?"

"Maybe not as soon as you think," Brainy said. "We've got some choices to make. There are still two curses waiting to be broken, not to mention Winn. I'll leave it up to the rest of you to choose, but if you ask me, Lex has waited this long and he can wait a little longer. Now that Kara's curse is no longer a ticking clock, we need to get our friends back, first and foremost."

"Agreed," both Kara and Lena said at the same time, and Nia too was nodding.

"I think I'll tag along," she said. "Eve's not expecting me back for a while yet, and you might find yourself in need of a Dreamer before this is all over."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Brainy replied. He glanced at Lena. "I hate to rush you, Lena, since you don't look like you're quite back to your old self yet. But we should probably get moving. We've got a long way to go if we're going to reunite everyone."

"Of course," Lena said. She started to stand and quickly grabbed onto the trunk of a tree, looking more than a little wobbly. Kara quickly eased her back down.

"Actually, Brainy," she said, "it won't take long at all." Quickly, she explained the map. Brainy's eyes widened.

"And this will work for all of us? The horses, too?"

"If we're on the horses when we use the map, then yes. Which means we can take the rest of the night so that Lena can rest."

"Well." Brainy shook his head, almost as if he couldn't believe Astra's gift. "Many thanks to your aunt, then. That will certainly make the rest of this quest easier."

"But where do we start?" Nia asked. "Which curse comes first?"

There was a long silence. The answer had risen instantly to Kara's tongue, but she bit it back. She couldn't be impartial here, couldn't make a fair choice about which goal to pursue. She knew what she wanted, knew what her heart was screaming at her to say, but she kept silent. She would let the others decide.

Brainy, however, read her face at a glance, and took it upon himself to voice her words for her. "It's obvious, isn't it?" he said. "Alex is the one most in danger. M'gann's curse has already happened, and J'onn can handle any threat he might run into. And Winn's family...now that they've got him where they want him, they won't do anything to really hurt him, or so I hope. Alex is the one we know for sure is walking into danger, so Alex comes first."

Kara almost melted in relief. He had summed up everything she wanted to say, but Alex was her sister. She had worried that the others might think she was only offering her opinion because of how close she and Alex were. Coming from Brainy, however, it truly seemed like the only logical decision, and the others accepted it without complaint. She caught his eye as they scattered to handle the various tasks of camping for the night. _Thank you_ , she whispered. 

He nodded, ever so slightly.

* * *

Thankfully, Lena looked much better in the morning, and much stronger too. She seemed to have recovered from the curse, at least the physical effects of it. She was still quiet through much of the morning as they prepared to leave, still wrestling with the knowledge of how deep her mother's hatred ran. After a soft reassurance that she was there if Lena needed her, Kara left her to herself, knowing that that was how Lena preferred to deal with things like this.

Once everything had been packed up, they pulled the horses into a circle, and Kara unrolled the map. "Show me Alex," she told it. To her surprise, her voice came out shaky. Who knew what had already happened, what they might find? Who knew what Maxwell Lord had already done?

The map obeyed, showing another little square with Alex's name written above it. But the square wasn't moving, and Kara's heart sank. She had hoped Alex and Mon-El would still be trying to find the wizard, that they could intercept the pair before they ever reached him. But that was looking unlikely now. 

"Show me Mon-El and Maxwell Lord," she said, and her worst fears were confirmed a moment later when the map added two more squares, almost on top of Alex's. They were all in the same place, then. And there was not a second to waste. Quickly Kara held the map out into the center of the circle and waited for the others to place their fingers on the spot that marked the dark wizard's cottage. "We have to do it all together," she explained, and as one they tapped their fingers twice on the map. Kara closed her eyes, feeling the magic envelop her, warm and tingling as it raced up and down her spine. The last thing she thought before a bright flash swallowed her up was _Please let Alex be all right._

The blinding light and the warm sensation faded, and Kara slowly opened her eyes. The map had worked. She and the others were no longer on the hillside. They and the horses stood in front of a cottage in the mountains, just like the one Nia and Eve called home. But this one was nothing like that. This one was tumbledown and dirty, surrounded by skeletal trees, with a dark, sinister feeling to it and tendrils of mist crawling on the ground, lending an eerie air to the whole place. For a moment the four of them stood there, mouths open and eyes wide. And then a voice broke the silence.

"Kara? Where on earth did you come from?"

Kara jumped, and then quickly settled her racing heartbeat, recognizing the voice. The mist had parted some, revealing the form of Daxam's outlaw prince sitting against a dead tree, his arms bound behind him. "Mon-El!" Kara darted forward, wrestling with the knots for a moment before she managed to work them loose. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine. We've only been here a day or so. But I think I've decided I don't like wizards." Mon-El rubbed the feeling back into his wrists and retrieved his bow and arrows, which lay discarded on the ground a few feet away. "How did you get here so fast? One minute you weren't there and the next you were. And what are you doing here, anyway? What about your curse?"

"I'll explain it all later, I promise. Where's Alex?"

Mon-El's face grew grave. "Inside. With him. He surprised us when we got here, it was like he was waiting. He knew we were coming, somehow. I couldn't stop him."

"Kara?" Brainy said, reaching out to put a cautionary hand on her arm as she started forward. "Let's think about this for a moment. You can't just go charging in there."

"Oh, yes I can. If I'm stronger than my aunt's magic, I'll be stronger than his too."

"Kara. You don't even know how to break the curse. Didn't the fairy say Alex would have to do it alone?"

"Yes. And she said the task would be "easier than you think, but harder than you know." But if the curse only breaks with true love, there must be some other meaning."

"Do you have any idea what that meaning is?"

Kara paused for a moment. "No," she admitted finally. "But I'm sure I'll figure it out." She started for the door of the cottage again, and the others followed her.

She was in no mood to knock politely. Lifting her foot almost before she thought about what she was doing, she kicked the door of the cottage with all her strength, sending it flying open in a spray of splinters.

There wasn't much in the cottage, if you didn't count the random magical objects strewn every which way. In one corner was tucked a battered wooden desk, and sitting at it was a dark-haired man that Kara recognized, from the few times she had seen him, as Maxwell Lord.

He stood up as they made their way in, seemingly unbothered by their explosive entrance. "Ah, Sleeping Beauty. I was hoping you might grace me with your presence. Something I can do for you?"

"I came for my sister," Kara said, clenching her hands into fists. There would be no talking her way out of this curse. There was no good left in Maxwell Lord, not that she could see.

"Of course you did. We were just talking about that, weren't we, Alex?" The wizard stepped out of the way of the desk, allowing Kara to see her sister sitting on it. Alex was still in frog form, but Kara knew her well enough to tell that she was furious.

"Kara," she said in a measured tone, "you shouldn't be here."

Maxwell laughed. "Isn't that an understatement. Honestly, princess, don't you know enough to recognize a trap? But then again, your lady-in-waiting came walking back into my clutches, so why should I expect you to do anything less? You do everything together, you almost-sisters. Do you have any idea what I could ask for, holding you for ransom? I could bring all of Kryptonia under my thumb if I wanted." 

"Alright, this fellow disgusts me," Nia announced. "What's the whole point of cursing Alex anyway? Wasn't this all about her rejecting your courtship? Do you honestly think she'll ever fall in love with you after this?"

Maxwell Lord shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But the curse breaks with true love, and I doubt she'll be getting many other offers, so if she ever wants to be human again, she'll learn to love me."

"Keep dreaming," Alex growled. "I'd rather be the frog."

"And that's your choice. But the fact remains that my little trap has worked. I've got Sleeping Beauty in my grasp and there's nothing any of you can do about it." Out of nowhere, a wand, similar to the one Astra had been carrying, appeared in his hand. "Unless, of course, you can fight magic with your bare hands, which I doubt."

That was ironic enough to make Kara crack a smile, despite the situation. "You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what I've done in the past twenty-four hours. I've broken a curse that's a lot stronger than yours."

Suddenly a realization flashed into her mind, and she drew in her breath sharply. Her voice came out in a whisper. "And I think," she said, "I think I know how to break Alex's."

"Do enlighten us," Maxwell sneered.

"It's easy." Kara whirled to face her sister, who was staring at her with wide eyes. "Alex, it's so easy. But it's so hard, just like Cat said, and you're the only one who can do it."

"I don't understand," Alex said.

"True love breaks the curse, right? Well, who gets to decide what true love is? True love is different for everyone. True love could be someone special or no one at all. It's all up to you. And if you decide that true love means not having one yet, then that's your true love. All you have to do is believe that that's enough to break the curse, and it will break." She turned back to Maxwell Lord, eyes flashing. "I'm right, aren't I? That's why all you dark wizards use true love- because it's so easy for people to think it's one thing when it really means something so different."

"Why, Kara Zor-El. However did you figure it out?" Maxwell kept his voice conversational, but something dark and dangerous flickered in his eyes.

"Because my curse was supposed to break with true love, too. But I broke it by believing I was strong enough to do it. And Alex can do the same thing. It's all in the mind. You don't have any power over her, not really. And you never did, and you never will." Kara lifted her chin defiantly, staring the wizard down.

He laughed, a cold, hard sound. "Well done. Well done, indeed. But unfortunately, I can't have you and your friends spreading that little secret, so I'll just have to cast another spell." He raised the wand, a red light glowing from the tip of it.

And then both he and the weapon went flying across the room. "Get away from my sister!" Alex shouted, fist still extended from the shattering punch that had sent the wizard sprawling.

A very human fist. It took a moment for that to register with the rest of the room.

But not Alex. Alex never hesitated. Crossing quickly to the groaning wizard, she leaned down and picked up the wand, snapping it in two over her knee. “Good luck cursing anyone else without that,” she snapped.

By then, Kara’s shock had worn off. She darted forward, throwing her arms around her sister as tears sprang to her eyes. “Alex, you’re back!”

“Of course I am,” Alex whispered, and Kara could tell by her voice that she was crying too. “You’re right, Kara. It was so easy. Thank you for showing me what true love is. No one gets to say what true love means except for me.”

For a moment they held each other, and then Kara drew back, taking in every detail of the woman she remembered. Alex hadn’t changed. The same red hair, cut far too short for the likings of the courtiers. The same dark eyes, kind and caring with a spark of fire deep within. Still Alex, even after all this time. Always the same Alex. Kara could have stayed there in her sister’s embrace for an eternity.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Brainy said, stepping forward. “But we’ve still got one more curse to break. I believe there’s another couple out there who need a reminder of what true love is.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kara asked.

“Just a minute,” Alex said. She crossed swiftly to the other side of the cottage and rummaged through the piles of magical junk, finally coming up with a gleaming silver longsword. “I’m taking this as compensation for the years of being a frog,” she announced to the unconscious figure of Maxwell Lord. She buckled the weapon around her waist and threw her shoulders back. “There. Now I’m myself again. Let’s get going. And on the way, Kara, I want to hear how you broke your curse and who was behind it.”

“Believe me,” Kara said. “That’s not a story that ends the way you think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Alex’s curse is broken. The bard has had this scene planned for a long time. As brave as our Alex is, she does have a habit of letting other people’s opinions worry her a bit too much, which I wanted to address here. And of course, I wanted to show her taking fate into her own hands at last. Only one curse remains, dear readers- but who can tell how this quest may end? I shall return soon with Part the Thirtieth!


	30. In Which True Love Is Better Late Than Never

Alex wasn’t as surprised as Lena about the way things had turned out with Kara’s curse. “Astra,” she repeated. “Of course. I should have known. But I wouldn’t have guessed that she’d listen to you.”

“Neither would I,” Kara laughed, pulling the map out of her saddlebag. “Well, it’s still early in the morning, and we still have work to do. Shall we?”

The five of them mounted up, and Kara placed the map into the center of the circle once again. “Show me J’onn and M’gann,” she ordered, and the map produced the familiar labeled squares. Neither one was moving. 

“Look at that,” Alex said. “They’re so close to each other.”

“And I doubt they know it,” Kara said. “Let’s fix that.”

They placed their fingers on the square with J’onn’s name above it, and the magic came again.

When they opened their eyes they were standing in the main street of one of Daxam’s worn-down little villages. Kara immediately glanced around, but the street was empty, and no one had seen their far-from-normal entrance. The magic, apparently, had deposited them in front of a building, and Kara looked up at the wooden sign that hung from it.

“A tavern,” Alex grumbled. “Of course it’s a tavern. Where else would someone who threw away the love of their life be but a tavern? He always lectured me about drowning my sorrows and now here we are.”

Kara grinned, relieved to have the same old Alex back at her side like always. “Well, let's get inside so you can tell him.”

Mon-El pushed the door open, making an exaggerated bow to usher them in, and Kara laughed again. It was so good to feel like things were getting better, to laugh again with her friends instead of worrying about all the things she had had to worry about on the quest.

It didn’t take long to find J’onn once they were inside. This early in the morning, the tavern wasn’t crowded, and they found J’onn almost immediately, seated at the counter with a mug of ale in front of him.

And he saw them. His eyes hardened, and he drew a long sigh, draining the mug in one gulp. “Kara, what are you doing here? You’re not changing my mind.”

“No, she’s not,” Alex said, stepping out from behind her. “Because I’m going to.”

J’onn’s eyes went wide. “Alex...the curse.”

“Is broken. As is Kara’s, and Maxwell Lord’s nose more than likely, thanks to my fist. And now I’ve come to break your curse.”

“I’m not under a curse.”

“Yes. Yes, you are. Because she is, and when you have true love, you share that type of thing.”

J’onn’s fist clenched. “She is not my true love. Maybe I thought she was, but no longer. She lied to me.”

“No. She didn’t tell you everything, because she loved you too much to risk losing you. J’onn, trust me. If there’s anything I’ve learned today, it’s that true love doesn’t always happen the way you think it’s going to. And you can’t fight it. You just have to realize what you have with her and forget the rest. Forget the curse. Forget what she didn’t tell you. It’s like Cat said- you have to forget what you didn’t know. The fact is that you love her, and she loves you. What else matters?”

“I don’t love her.” J’onn’s voice was like iron.

“But you do,” Alex said. “I can see it, the pain in your face. You wouldn’t be feeling that if you didn’t feel something. If you truly hated her, you’d be glad that she’s gone. But you’re not. You’re here, wishing she was too.”

“So maybe I did love her,” J’onn said. “Once. But not now. How can I look at her and love her when all I see is the monster that took everything away from me?”

“That wasn’t her, J’onn,” Kara said. “She was forced into that form. She didn’t choose her curse any more than I chose mine. If you loved her, and she loves you, then it’s as Alex said. Nothing else should matter. That’s all you need to know.”

J’onn drew a deep, shuddering sigh. His hands were shaking, and there was a sheen in his eyes that might have been tears. “It broke my heart to lose her,” he whispered. “I never thought I’d feel like that again after I lost my wife. And then, for awhile, I had that again. I was rebuilding my life again, learning to move on. But the curse-“

“Should make no difference,” Brainy said. There was no judgement in his voice, no condemnation. He just said it like a fact. “You cannot change the past, J’onn. No one ever can. But why should the past define your future?”

“There’s plenty of people who go their whole life looking for true love and never find it,” Mon-El pointed out. “You? You’re lucky enough to have it already, yours for the taking if you want it. I’m no expert in matters of the heart, but if I were you I wouldn’t throw that away too quickly.”

“I know it hurts, J’onn,” Kara said softly, sitting down beside him and slipping her arm around him. “I know how hard it was to lose your family and how hard it is to be reminded of that. But you can’t live in memories. You were learning how to love again, when you were with her. You could be happy again, the way you were once. By turning your back on her, you’re just putting yourself through more pain. You’ve been through enough. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but it wasn’t my secret to give. She didn’t hide it to trick you. She hid what she was because she loved you and she didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t want you to turn your back on her. All she ever talked about when she told me was how you would feel, J’onn. Not about herself or how she felt living with the curse. The only concern she had was for you.”

"If there was no curse," Lena asked, voice soft, "if she wasn't the beast, would you want her back?"

"In a heartbeat," J'onn answered. "I wouldn't hesitate a moment."

"Then don't," Lena said. "Because that's not really her. She is not the beast deep down. She didn't ask for the curse. I say this as someone who has been judged my whole life for who my family is, for something I can't control- look past that. Judge her for her heart."

There was a long silence. And then, suddenly, all the hate and hardness seemed to vanish from J'onn in a single instant. His shoulders slumped, and he looked more vulnerable, more broken, than Kara had ever seen him.

"It's too late for that," he said. "She'll never want me back, not after I already rejected her."

"You don't know that," Kara said. "M'gann is more forgiving than you know. Just go to her. Just try."

The knight took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if trying to gather his courage. Finally, he nodded. "Alright," he said. "I'll try. I suppose that since you found me, you can find her?"

"I already know where she is," Kara answered. "And we can take you there. By magic. It's...a long story."

J'onn smiled for the first time that morning. "I'll have time to hear it. Later. After I make things right."

"I don't think we should all go," Lena put in. "She'll probably be very...emotional. Brainy, Mon-El, Nia and I can stay here. Kara, Alex, you can go with J'onn."

"Not here, though," Alex said. She led the way out of the tavern and down into a secluded alleyway, where no one would see them use the map.

"Are you ready?" Kara asked softly. J'onn nodded.

"I'm ready. I only hope she can forgive me...that she'll understand why I reacted the way I did."

"She will," Alex said. "No one blames you for mourning the past. But now the time has come to put the past behind you, once and for all. Kara?"

"Tap your finger twice on the map and close your eyes," Kara said, gesturing to the square labeled with M'gann's name. "It will take us to her."

"When this is all over, Kara, and you've told me how you and Alex broke your curses, I would certainly like to hear the story of how you came by this." J'onn set his finger on the map, and Kara and Alex did the same. Once more, the warm tingle of magic raced up and around them, and then they opened their eyes.

Kara drew in her breath in a little, awestruck gasp. The place where they were standing was unexpectedly lovely- a mountain meadow, filled with soft grayish-green grass and dotted all over with nodding white wildflowers. It was certainly the kind of place where she would expect M'gann to take refuge; M'gann had always had an eye for the beauty she saw everywhere except within herself.

"If I had to guess," Alex said, "we'll find her there." She pointed to a large heap of boulders at one edge of the meadow that formed a sort of cave. It was too dark to see inside the entrance, but given that the cave was the only shelter in the meadow, Alex's guess was more than likely correct.

The three of them stood still for a moment, uncertain of what to do now. It was Kara, finally, who stepped forward to the entrance of the cave, calling out softly. "M'gann? It's Kara."

A long silence fell over the meadow, broken only by the distant chirping of a sparrow. And then, from inside the cave, came a voice, heavy with grief and suspicion, but still unmistakably M'gann's. "How did you find me?"

There was a scuffle at the entrance, and the beast stepped out into the light. The horror of the curse had not faded; the monster before them was the same one that had been there the day the curse had struck. But the eyes were still human, still the ones Kara knew so well.

Those eyes landed on J'onn, and went wide in a combination of shock and fear. M'gann froze, speechless as the knight took a step forward.

Sometimes true love was not extravagant. Sometimes true love needed few words. And J'onn's, when he spoke, were soft and simple, saying all that needed to be said.

"M'gann," he said, reaching out a hand to take hold of the claw that her own hand had become, "forgive me. I was wrong. Curse or no curse, I will always love you. I know that now."

M'gann's other hand flew up to cover her mouth, and she dropped to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. But J'onn was there to catch her, wrapping strong arms around her as she sobbed.

The final curse broke quickly and quietly, a silent surrender in the face of true love. One moment J'onn held the beast in his embrace. The next moment, without any kind of warning or fanfare or any sign at all, the true M'gann returned. Kara felt a wide smile spread over her face; she had expected this outcome, but witnessing it was a special thing. "The fourth curse," she whispered. "We've done it. We've broken them all."

But if she was expecting it, M'gann was most certainly not. Her breath caught, and she lifted a hand to her face as if she didn't truly believe she was back in her human form. "The curse," she gasped. "But it's...it's meant to be permanent...it's not meant to break, once it happens..."

"This is permanent too," J'onn said. "You and I. Always."

And for the second time, he leaned down. This time there was nothing to interrupt them, nothing to interfere. This time, without a shadow of a doubt, was true love's kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the four curses are broken! But fear not, dear readers- the quest, and thus this story, are not quite over yet. I wish thee all a happy July 4, and I shall return soon with Part the Thirty-First!


	31. In Which The Adventurers Are Reunited

Smiles broke out on every face when Kara and Alex came back into the tavern with the reunited lovers in tow. Now that J'onn and M'gann had each other back, they didn't look as if they ever intended to separate again; M'gann still hadn't let go of J'onn's hand, and J'onn kept leaning down to brush little kisses along her forehead. Everyone was talking over everyone else, wanting to know how the last curse had been vanquished and trying to explain to J'onn and M'gann everything they had missed. An air of celebration had taken over their little group, and Kara, for one, was more than happy to enjoy it. The quest, for the most part, was finished. The four curses were broken, the hard part was behind them. In spite of it all, she had triumphed.

"So what now?" Mon-El called out above the cheerful chatter, turning everyone's attention to Kara. In an instant, the talk and laughter stilled, the focus now on what came next.

"Well, there's not much left to do," Kara said. "Take Lena back to Lex, of course. And then it's back to Kryptonia. I'll pay you what I promised for your help, Mon-El, and you and Nia will probably be on your way back to Daxam. Brainy, J'onn, M'gann, I don't know what you're planning to do, but there's a place for you in Kryptonia if you want it. But before that, there's one more thing we have to take care of. It's not all sunshine and roses yet."

  
"I was beginning to think maybe you forgot," Alex said with a teasing smile.

"Oh, trust me. I wouldn't forget about Winn. J'onn, I hate to steal you away from M'gann so quickly, but it might be nice to have you backing me and Alex up in case those two stepsisters of his decide they're not happy to see us."

"Understood," J'onn said, standing up from the table with one last squeeze of M'gann's hand. "Do you have a plan for how to go about this? I wasn't there when Winn left, but from what I've heard of the story, it sounds as if he's made up his mind."

"No, he hasn't," Alex said. "I saw the look on his face. They may have convinced him he's not supposed to be with us, but deep down he still wants to be. He'd come running back here any day if they weren't in the picture. He's just scared, that's all. Too scared to know he doesn't have to be."

"And you have a plan for confronting that?" Lena asked.

Kara nodded. "I know what it's like to be afraid. I was terrified, facing Astra down; I just didn't really have time to think about it. I can get through to him. I know I can."

"And the stepsisters?" Brainy asked.

Alex couldn't hold back a slight smirk. "Oh, trust me. I know how she can deal with them. In fact, that'll be the fun part."

"Suddenly I'm getting nervous," J'onn said.

"Don't be. We all know Kara's not an ordinary princess, but she's still royalty. And what's the point of being royalty if you can't show a little royal authority sometimes, especially with people like that? You're not the imperious type, Kara, but in this case, I think it's only fair for you to show those two just what happens when you come between a princess and her friend."

There was a chorus of agreement around the room, and Kara grinned. "Actually," she said, "I think that's an amazing idea. Alex, J'onn- let's get going."

For the second time that day, she led them out to the deserted alleyway and unrolled the map. It didn't take long at all for the square labeled with Winn's name to pop up; like J'onn's and M'gann's, it wasn't moving. "That's odd," she said. "Do you think they've made it back to the village already?"

Alex snorted. "Hardly. Making the journey that fast would be very inconvenient, and I don't think those two have done anything inconvenient in their entire lives. More than likely they're just making the trip slowly and they've stopped at an inn or something. As far as they're concerned, they've got what they want, so what do they have to rush for?"

"Good point." Kara set her finger on the map, and J'onn and Alex followed suit. When they opened their eyes, it was immediately obvious that Alex's guess had been right. They were standing in front of a large, regal-looking inn. Kara took a deep breath and started for the door, raising a hand to knock. "Play the princess," J'onn whispered in her ear. "You may not be accustomed to using your royal status, but that's the best weapon you've got right now."

Kara nodded, throwing her shoulders back and trying her best to channel the stern and dignified, yet not unfriendly, look she had seen her mother wear so often. The door swung open, revealing a butler in an impressively tailored jacket. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kara beat him to it.

"I'm Princess Kara Zor-El of Kryptonia," she announced, fishing her dagger from her belt in order to show her family crest. "And I'm here on very important royal business. I have reason to believe there might be two noblewomen staying here. They call themselves sisters."

"And are more than likely not," Alex muttered under her breath. The butler's eyes went wide, obviously intimidated by the three very well-armed individuals standing on his doorstep.

"We do have a pair of guests matching that description," he stammered. "Shall I...call them down for you?"

"Yes, thank you," Kara said. J'onn's deep voice boomed out before the butler could turn away.

"But don't tell the two ladies who it is that wishes to see them," he ordered. The butler nodded.

"A surprise. Of course, sir." He hurried up the staircase that led to the guest rooms, and Kara let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"How was that?"

"Perfect," Alex said. "Just keep it up when those two come down the stairs, and you'll be good as gold."

"Speaking of which," J'onn said, holding out a hand to the staircase. Kara caught the sharp, staccato sound of footsteps, and then Siobhan and Lyra came around the corner.

The look on their faces changed in an instant, from polite smiles to cold hostility. "What are you doing here?" Siobhan sneered, quickly making her way down the remainder of the staircase so she could look Kara directly in the eyes. Kara looked right back. She had fought a dragon. This girl was nothing in comparison.

"Looking for you," she said, throwing Siobhan's words from their last meeting back in her face. "Actually, not you. Where's Winn?"

"You don't need to know that. We've been through this. He chose us."

"Not like you gave him much of a choice," Alex retorted. J'onn stayed silent, his arms folded across his chest, communicating the obvious message that the three of them were not backing down. Lyra came down to join Siobhan at the bottom of the stairs, the contempt clear on her face. But Kara wasn't letting this turn into a standoff.

"Let me make myself clear," she said. "We may not be in Kryptonia right now, but I am still the princess. So you can either do as I say and tell me where my friend is, or you can make arrangements to move somewhere else. And I highly doubt my cousin would appreciate me telling him the disrespect you're showing me, so I wouldn't count on keeping your noble titles."

Siobhan's eyes went wide, and then narrowed again, but a different voice cut in before she could make a reply to Kara's ultimatum. 

"Kara, I'm right here."

Kara looked up to the top of the stairs again, her eyes locking with Winn's. He tried to smile at her, but it couldn't disguise the tired hopelessness that covered his face. All of the changes Cat had made were erased now; he was back in his old rags, looking nothing like a prince, looking just the way he had when Kara first met him back in the village. It hurt, strangely, to see him like that, as if all the progress their friendship had made was erased too.

His eyes flicked to the two people standing behind her, and he blinked in sudden confusion. "J'onn? What are you doing here? And you...who are you?"

"I'm Alex," Alex said. "The curses are broken. The only thing left to do before we head home is to get you to come to your senses."

"Do we have to go over this all again?" Lyra huffed. "We're his family and you're not, and no matter what you do, you can't make royalty out of him."

"We don't have to." Kara had never heard herself speak so firmly before. "Don't you remember what Cat said, Winn? You'll be less than you want to be but more than anyone knows you are. You want to be royalty, you want to feel like you're worthy of us, worthy of the girl you love. But you don't have to be royalty to do that. We've never asked you to be anything more than yourself. Because you're so much more than you think you are. That's what Cat meant. You've never seen how much you're worth...and how much we love you."

Those words seemed to startle him. He stared at her, almost studying her face, and she could see him wrestling with what she was saying and how it conflicted with what he'd been told all his life. But Siobhan's harsh laughter interrupted.

"So what? It doesn't change the fact that we're his family. And you may not care if he's not royalty, but I'm sure his little princess certainly will."

"If she does," J'onn said evenly, "if royalty is what she bases love on, then she's the one who isn't worthy of him instead of the other way round. But I doubt she will. Not everyone's stupid enough to throw away true love based on silly little things like that. Take it from someone who almost did." He turned his attention to Winn, both gentle and firm in the way that only J'onn could be. "She's right that they're your family, son. But we're your family too. And you need to ask yourself which side's been acting the way a family should."

"And you already know the answer, so don't let these two convince you otherwise," Alex said. "I don't care what you have to do. Write a letter to your princess, tell her everything- it doesn't matter. Just get yourself out of this mess and back with people who actually care about you."

"I just want you back, Winn," Kara said softly, all the bluster and authority gone from her voice now. "Not a prince, not a servant. Just my friend."

Winn bit his lip, the conflict clear on his face again. His stepsisters stared daggers at him, and he seemed to shrink away from their harsh gazes a litte. It was obvious what he wanted, but he was afraid to reach out and take it. Afraid to, for once, do what he needed instead of what everyone else was asking him to do.

But at last he looked up, taking a deep breath as if to steady himself before he nodded. "Being your friend was the thing I missed most, Kara," he whispered. "So yes. I'll join the quest again, if you'll have me."

"If you hadn't said that," Alex said, "I think I might have come over there and dragged you back by the ear." She was smiling as she said it, and Winn smiled back, his real smile this time.

But Siobhan moved quickly to block his path, her voice like venom. "Don't you dare take one step down those stairs. I don't care if you are a princess, Kara Zor-El. Nobody makes a fool of me."

"You did that on your own," J'onn said firmly. "Come on, Winn. Put these two behind you."

He did just that, making his way quickly down the staircase. Alex clapped a hand on his shoulder, and Kara couldn't stop herself from grinning. At the door of the inn he turned back for one last glance at the two women.

"I don't hate you," he said. "In fact, I forgive you. For everything. And I hope, someday, the two of you are as happy as I think I'm going to be."

They didn't reply, their faces hard and stony, but there was nothing more that needed to be said. Their role in the quest was over now. The curses had been broken, and Cat's riddles had been solved. There was nothing left on the road ahead but celebration.

"Let's get back to the others," J'onn declared. "It's time we headed home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so our band of questers is back together at last- but what new perils might await them on the journey home? I shall return soon with Part the Thirty-Second!


	32. In Which Darkness Falls

It took a while for them to clear out of the tavern. First everyone had to tell Winn how glad they were to have him back and how worried they had been about him. And then they all had to sort out who had heard which parts of the story, trading pieces back and forth until at last everyone knew exactly how each curse had been broken and what they had missed of each others' lives during the separation.

By the time that was done, it was already nearing late afternoon. As fast as the map could take them back to the Luthor kingdom, it didn't seem to be worth it to travel there tonight. They needed one day of celebration, of enjoying each other's company, of basking in the incredible triumph they had accomplished. The curses were broken, the quest complete. It had not been an easy task, and they needed some time just to appreciate that it was, at last, finished. Even Lena agreed that her brother could wait another day.

_And after that, we'll be home._

In the end, they found an inn just a few minutes away from the tavern that was more than willing to give them rooms for a fair price. It surprised Kara just how many rooms they needed; their little band of adventurers was not so little anymore. The quest had taken her down roads she never could have imagined. And if she was being honest, she wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

She lay awake for a long time that night, just...thinking. Pondering everything that had happened since the night she had galloped away from the palace with Alex on her shoulder. No one could have predicted, that night, how things would turn out in the end. She had gotten the adventure she had always craved as a little girl. In fact, she had gotten more than that. She had gotten the adventure of a lifetime.

And she hadn't expected, now that she had reached the end of it, how much she was looking forward to going home. The palace that had once seemed like a stifling cage now seemed like the most wonderful place on earth. And Kal, so righteous, so noble, trying so hard to be a good king- she hadn't left on the best terms with him, given his insistence on her marriage and all, but now she understood how difficult some decisions could be, especially with the weight of leadership pressing down on you. She didn't really know him that well, she realized. He had changed so much from the baby she knew, and she was ready to see what those changes were. There was Lois too, and her little nephew to meet, maybe two nephews by now. She had wanted so desperately to escape Kryptonia. And now she couldn't wait to be back. Adventure was all well and good, and it wasn't something she planned on giving up. There were many more adventures to come if she had anything to say about it; she had no intentions of settling down to, as Cat would have put it, "typical princess-hood." But maybe part of the adventure- one of the best parts- was coming home safely at the end, valuing the place you had started from just as much as the place where you had ended up.

She drew a long sigh, smiling a small, satisfied smile in the darkness. "Thank you," she whispered. She didn't know who she was talking to, whether it was Cat or Astra or someone else entirely, but after all, it didn't really matter.

She rolled over once, and it was morning.

They were all still in a celebratory mood as they prepared to leave, with one notable exception. Lena was oddly quiet as they devoured a hearty breakfast in the inn's dining room, contributing very little to the whirl of laughter and chatter, a polite smile frozen on her face. Kara knew her well enough by now to tell when something was bothering her, and she pulled her to the side after breakfast was over. "Lena, is something wrong?"

The Luthor princess smiled, shrugging a shoulder. "Oh, it's nothing, Kara. Just nerves, I suppose, from seeing Lex again."

"Do you think he's up to something?"

"I was hoping he wouldn't be. He's never involved me in his schemes before. But now, after the curse..." She sighed. "My mother tried to kill me. There's no getting around that. And if it weren't for you, she would have succeeded. As terrible as Lillian is, I never thought she'd go that far, hated me that much. She hid it so well. If she can hide that, if she's capable of that, then how well do I really know Lex? What might he be capable of? I've waited so long to get back to Lex, daydreaming about having my brother back. That's- well, that's my happily ever after. And what if I don't get it?"

"Maybe you won't," Kara said. "I don't know what'll happen. But this isn't the happily ever after I wanted either, and now I wouldn't want anything else. No matter what happens today, you'll get a happy ending, even if you have to make it yourself. I promise." She wrapped her arms around Lena, pulling her into a tight embrace before letting her go. "Let's get you home, shall we?"

They rejoined the others, mounting their horses and riding a little way past the village to make sure that none of the villagers saw them use the map. Kara unrolled the magical parchment, looking to Lena for direction. "Where to?"

"To the palace," Lena said. "Might as well not beat around the bush. As long as you don't say who you are in front of anyone but Lex, Kara, you'll be perfectly safe."

"Alright then," Kara said. "Show me the Luthor palace." The map obeyed her, and they all placed their fingers on the rough paper, waiting for the magic.

When they opened their eyes, they were standing in front of the sprawling palace Kara had never had the chance to see. Both Brainy and Lena seemed overcome by the sight of it. "He hasn't changed a thing," Lena whispered, tears springing to her eyes. "I never thought I'd see this place again."

"Are you alright?" Kara asked Brainy, putting a hand on his shoulder. He sighed, rearranging his features into their usual stoic expression.

"A bit taken aback, that's all. I never wished to return here."

"Well, you're not staying, and you don't owe a word of explanation to Lex as to why you didn't bring Lena back," Nia said. "Just remember that. He has no power over you anymore."

Brainy nodded, though obviously still uncertain. They made their way towards the main gate, Lena in the lead and Kara and Brainy, the two most in danger from being here, bringing up the rear.

The guard at the gate called out a challenge as they approached. "Who goes there?"

"Princess Lena Luthor," Lena answered. "I've returned."

"You're joking. Or lying. Which is it?"

"Neither one. I'm the princess. Look at me."

The guard took a step forward, peering intently at Lena. Then his eyes widened, and he staggered a step backwards. "Your Highness! But...how?"

"Through a series of miracles," Lena answered. "At least, that's the best description for it. I need to speak with my brother, please. As soon as possible. I'm sure the people must be waiting for me. They'll be glad to know Lex's mission to find me was successful."

"Lex knew about this?" The guard seemed mystified, and Kara felt the familiar crinkle of confusion on her face. Lex had said he was sending them after Lena to pacify the people. So why didn't the people seem to know he had sent them? "Well, your brother must have wanted that kept quiet, milady. I assure you, none of us ever thought we'd see you again. As for Lex, I don't doubt he'd be glad to see you, but you've come to the wrong place if you want to speak with him. He hasn't been here since the invasion."

A cold, hard lump of dread settled in Kara's stomach. "Invasion?" Lena repeated.

"Oh, that's right. You likely wouldn't know about that, wherever you've been. We invaded Kryptonia a month or two ago. Took the whole kingdom with hardly a fight, despite the best the dragon-slayer could do. You'll find Lex there."

Kara wanted to cry out, but no sound came. A heavy, stunned silence fell over them all, until finally Lena broke it, her voice strained. "I...I see. Thank you. Please leave us be. I need to speak with my friends alone."

The guard retreated, and chaos broke loose, everyone talking over everyone else- Lena frantically apologizing, Mon-El and Alex protesting how they'd known all along that Lex wasn't to be trusted, Brainy analyzing the logic of it all, Winn asking a dozen worried questions and J'onn and M'gann trying to calm everyone down.

But Kara...Kara couldn't speak. Her mind was whirling. _No. Please, no._ After everything she’d suffered, after everything she’d gone through...it couldn’t end like this. She couldn’t lose her home. Her kingdom, her cousin...Cat had foreseen the darkness, but since defeating Astra, Kara had held out hope that maybe the dark shadow was defeated too. Cat’s words echoed back to her. “The darkest hour will come when you think all danger is past.” She had almost forgotten that prophecy, but she had fallen for it all the same. She had thought the danger was past, that the darkest hour was behind her. But she had been wrong. Terribly, tragically wrong.

It felt, strangely, like she should have seen this coming. Images danced back and forth in her mind as she desperately tried to sort out what it was she had been missing. Astra’s black dragon, framed against the sunlit blue sky. Cat, her eyes unfocused as she struggled to see through the shadow that loomed over Kryptonia. Lex, standing in the dungeon on the day he’d captured them, the green pendant hanging from his neck in the shape of-

Kara gasped, staggered, nearly fell, stunned by a sudden realization. The pieces of the puzzle had come together in her mind. There had been another plan at work, all along, and not a single one of them had seen it.

She snapped out of the haze of shock, whirling back to face the others. “There must be some mistake,” Lena was saying. “If Lex made a bargain with you to find me, why would he attack Kryptonia before you returned? I can understand attacking if you failed to find me, but this...it makes no sense.”

“But it does,” Kara said heavily. “Don’t you see? It was never about you, Lena. You were just a distraction.”

J’onn studied her face intently, trying to grasp what she was saying. “Kara, what are you talking about?”

“The search for Lena was meant to get me out of the way. With half the royal guard off on that ridiculous shoe quest, and me far away in Daxam looking for Lena...Kal was on his own. Vulnerable. Kryptonia was at its weakest. It was the perfect time to strike. All his concern over Lena...it was only a ploy.”

“I admit, it sounds like something Lex would do,” Brainy said. “But I’ve never known him to lie where Lena’s concerned. How do we know for sure?”

“Because Cat told us. Back at the very start of this quest.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, Cat told us? We’ve solved all the riddles.”

“No. We haven’t. We just thought we did. “The enemy that comes in daylight may prove to be a friend. But beware, above all others, the dragon in the dark.” That’s what she told me. I thought she was talking about Astra.”

“Wasn’t she?”

“Yes. But only the first part, the enemy in daylight. _That_ was Astra. Astra only ever attacked us in daylight, and she turned out to be a friend. But she was never the dragon in the dark. We were wrong about that. Cat told me there was a darkness hovering over Kryptonia, and that darkness is where the real dragon was lurking. Astra wasn’t the one to beware of.” Kara turned, fixing her worried blue gaze on the horizon as if she could catch a glimpse of her stricken homeland. “The dragon in the dark- it’s Lex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didst not think it would be so easy, did you? I shall return soon with Part the Thirty-Third.


	33. In Which One Last Battle Remains

For a long, long moment, no one spoke. No one moved. To go from celebrating a victory to facing something like this- it was jarring, and no one knew quite how to respond.

But for Kara, saying the horrific truth out loud proved to be the catalyst she needed. She stood staring out at the distant horizon, her blue eyes slowly turning hard and cold. Then suddenly she shook off the shock and whirled back around to face the others, one hand clenching tighter around her horse's reins. "Come on," she said. "We don't have any time to waste."

"W-where are we going?" Winn's voice was uncertain, and some of the others looked as if they felt the same. But Alex nodded, folding her arms across her chest, and J'onn laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Back to Kryptonia," Kara said, unrolling the map and turning her horse away from the Luthor palace gate. "Sorry, Lena, but it looks like you'll have to make your own happy ever after after all."

Lena sighed, her eyes downcast. "Of course. I understand. I'm...I'm so sorry, Kara. I never fathomed this."

"None of us did," Nia said. "And that includes me. If a Dreamer couldn't see it, don't blame yourself that you couldn't either."

"Lex is at fault for what he's done," Mon-El added. "It doesn't change one thing about you. I was planning to part ways here and head back to Daxam, Kara, but I think I'll stick around if you'll have me. I know my priority is helping the people of Daxam, but my parents have caused Kryptonia some trouble over the years. I'd like to help make up for it."

"You're more than welcome," Kara said. "I have a feeling we'll need as much help as we can get. Although, Brainy and Lena- I'll understand if you two would rather not face Lex down."

"He's my brother," Lena said. " If I don't clearly separate myself from the Luthor evil, I'll be seen as part of it. I don't stand with Lex or condone what he's done, and I need to make that clear. To him, as well as to everyone else."

"I agree," Brainy said. "And as for myself, I did my best to keep Lex from doing something like this. And now that he has, it's only right I do my best to stop it."

Kara nodded. "Alright then," she said, unrolling the map. "I'm going to try something different. Show me the palace in Kryptonia."

At first, the map did nothing. And then, little by little, the ink outlining the countries on the parchment began to fade, reshaping itself into the outline of the palace Kara knew so well. 

"We're just going to magic ourselves in?" Winn's voice was higher than it should have been, and his eyes darted from one place to the other as if searching for a way out.

"That's exactly what we're doing," Kara said. "Unfortunately for Lex, he's not the one who grew up in a kingdom full of magic. He'll never see it coming."

"Try the back wall of the palace," J'onn advised her. "Unless Kal- or Lex, as the case may be- has changed something since I've been away, that's the spot that's least heavily guarded."

"What's the plan once we're there?" Alex asked. Kara drew a deep breath, considering a moment before she answered.

"We've got to think this through," she said. "Lex will more than likely have Kal under heavy guard, but I can't see even him doing the same thing to Kal's family. So we'll have to split up. Mon-El, take Winn and Brainy and go find Lois and my nephew. J'onn, Nia, M'gann- clear a path to the throne room, make sure we won't run into Lex's guards. Lena, Alex- you'll come with me to find my cousin. And we have to move as silently as possible. With any luck, Lex won't know we're there until we're breaking down his door."

"Shouldn't we wait for the knights to come back?" Winn asked.

"If they've given up on the shoe, then by all means, yes. We could use Captain Olsen's help with this. But if they haven't returned, there's no time to wait. Who knows what havoc Lex has wreaked by now." Kara scanned the map, setting her finger down on the back wall of the palace. One by one, some hesitantly and others with no hesitation at all, the rest of her little band joined her. Kara closed her eyes, dreading what she might find when she opened them.

But the back wall of the palace was empty. No sentries, no shouts of alarm at their appearance. "I don't like this," J'onn muttered. "Even for a Luthor ego, this is brazenly overconfident. Where are his guards?"

"I'll take it as a good omen," Alex said. "Come on, let's get going. We'll meet up outside the throne room." She crossed quickly to Kara's side, drawing her sword. Almost silently, their three groups split up from each other, each with a dangerous mission of their own to accomplish.

"The dungeons," Kara said. "That's where Kal will be, at least if Lex hasn't-"

"He wouldn't," Lena interrupted. "Not yet, anyway. I've seen him in victory before. He'll want his chance to gloat for a good long while, especially with a triumph he's dreamed of for as long as this one."

"Some triumph, invading a near-helpless country," Alex grunted.

"Lex takes after my mother, I suppose," Lena said. It seemed that the shock and pain of her brother's betrayal had worn off her; there was nothing but cold anger in her face now, and Kara was glad to see it. There would be no talking Lex down the way she had done with Astra- Lex had been given his chance more than once, and he had made his choice.

As they made their way through the winding corridors down to the dungeons, the apparent desertion of the place became all the more obvious. It wasn't just guards that were missing. The servants and courtiers were gone too, leaving the place as silent as the grave.

"Where is everyone?" Lena asked. "Something feels strange about this."

"I was going to say the same thing," Alex replied. "There's more here than meets the eye."

"Let's just count it as a blessing," Kara said, straining to shove open the heavy door that shielded the staircase to the dungeons. There were no guards here either, another thing which didn't make sense. Surely Lex knew her cousin would not just surrender so easily. Surely someone as devious as the Luthor ruler would not make it so simple for his hated enemy to escape.

But even at the top of the staircase, they found no one. It reminded Kara uncomfortably of the cursed castle they had found M'gann in, as if Lex had done something here to change her childhood home irreversibly, to make it his own. She drew her dagger as she took the first step onto the staircase, and Alex tightened her grip on her sword. At every corner they turned, Kara expected to be confronted by one of Lex's soldiers, but her expectations were constantly subverted. The air grew colder, with a damp, musty feel to it, but there was no sign of life. Finally they reached the dungeon door, only to find it completely unguarded.

"I don't like this," Alex said, echoing J'onn's earlier words. "Who knows what trap he's got set on the other side of that door?"

"Hopefully," Kara said, lifting her foot, "my cousin." Without further ado, she kicked the door in with all her strength.

She almost fell over, expecting far more resistance than the door offered her. Unlocked. It was completely unlocked, as if Lex simply didn't care who might try to enter. Was he really so arrogant, so sure in his victory that he hadn't even bothered to guard against a counter-attack? For Lex, known for his abundance of caution and his determination never to take a single thing for granted, it seemed dangerously boastful. Something else was happening here. It had to be. But what?

Shaking off her puzzlement, Kara continued into the dungeon, Alex at her side and Lena just behind her. Most of the cells were empty; Kryptonia had always been a mostly peaceful nation, and there had never been much use for this part of the palace. They went deeper into the darkness, all three of them tense and on guard.

"Kara?"

The voice startled all of them. Kara whirled around, automatically pointing her dagger in the direction it had come from. And the next moment, she dropped the weapon to the ground and flung herself to her knees in front of one of the cells, gripping the bars until her knuckles turned white. "Kal! You're alright!"

Her cousin mustered a strained smile, and Kara winced at how tired, how haggard, how unlike himself he looked. "I'm still in one piece, Kara. But how did you get back here? The curse-"

"Broken," Alex cut in. "And mine, too. Just a minute, Your Highness, and I'll have this door open. At least this one's locked."

"Lois and Jon and the baby," Kal said. "I...I haven't seen them, and Lex wouldn't tell me...they're alright, aren't they?"

"So far as I know. I have friends looking for them right now. We're going to put an end to Lex's madness, Kal, I promise. What happened here? Where is everyone and why isn't anything guarded?"

"It's not guarded because it doesn't need to be. Lex can keep this whole place under his heel single-handed. I learned that the hard way. He's using magic, Kara. Dark magic."

"Lex knows magic? But I thought the Luthor kingdom didn't have any!"

"Well, my mother learned it," Lena said. "Knowing Lex, he would have taught himself just to stay one step ahead of her. He might have been her favorite, but their relationship certainly wasn't built on trust."

"You're the lost princess?" Kal asked. "Lex's sister?"

"I am. And I'm nothing like him. Kara saved my life. I owe much to her, and to Kryptonia, and I don't condone what my brother has done." The Kryptonian king didn't look convinced, but Lena stood firm, and finally he nodded in recognition of her statement before turning back to Kara.

"I didn't just let him take this country, Kara," he said. "I was ready to fight him. But he had something- a spell of some kind. I've never felt anything like it. There was a flash of green light and then it was as if all the strength went out of me. I couldn't even lift a sword, much less swing it." Proving his point, as Alex finally succeeded in opening the door and helping him to his feet, the king nearly fell, catching at the wall to hold himself up. "Apparently the effects haven't worn off yet, either."

"Magic," Kara said softly. "Lex is using magic." The revelation shook her; it was unexpected, and it would undoubtedly make the battle for her homeland a much harder one to fight. Now she understood why there were no guards. Lex didn't need any. He was powerful enough to handle any threat himself.

Almost any threat. Almost as if she were in a dream, Astra's words came floating back to her. "Stronger than magic, Kara Zor-El. That's what you are."

_That's what I am._

"Let's go," she said aloud. "Let's meet up with the others and then find Lex."

"To do what?" Alex asked. "We can't fight magic like that."

"I've fought worse. If I can face Astra, I can face Lex."

"No, Kara." Kal's blue eyes were wide with concern. "It's far too dangerous. If anyone, it should be me."

"But you can barely stand. There's no one else. Lex is too proud and too sure of himself to turn down single combat. It's our only chance to defeat him, and I'm going to take it. I didn't go through the last few months to see it all end like this. I'm sorry, Kal. But I'm in charge of happy ever after now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter, dearest readers, will be the final one before the epilogue. I will return soon with Part the Thirty-Fourth.


	34. In Which The Final Battle Is Fought

Now that they knew they wouldn't be confronted by any of Lex's guards, the journey back up to the main part of the palace took far less time than the journey down had. Their progress was made a little slower by the king, who was still incredibly weak from whatever spell Lex had used, but it wasn't long before they were meeting up with the others just a few corridors away from the throne room.   
  
Kal blinked at the sight of the others, obviously a little taken aback. "J'onn. I didn't expect to see you here. And you...aren't you the Prince of Daxam?"

  
"That I am," Mon-El replied cheerfully. "And happy to help. Your wife's fine, by the way. She's in the east wing. There were a couple of guards, but nothing we couldn't handle."

  
"Oh, thank goodness." The relief was evident on Kal's face, and he straightened up a little as if some of the weight had fallen off his shoulders.

  
"The knights have not returned yet," Brainy said. "They're either still off looking for the shoe, or lying low somewhere else until they can mount some sort of counter-attack against Lex."

  
"I'm glad they haven't done that yet. Lex is using magic. And I'm going to fight him."

  
"Kara, let's not be hasty-" J'onn began.

  
"I'm not. This is the only way. Everything that's happened on this quest- I feel like it's been preparing me for this. When that sleeping curse hit, it changed my world. I'm not going to let it take away my home. I'm not going to lose anything else I love to magic. And I'm the only one who can fight this. Lex doesn't care about any of you; you're nobodies to him. But me...I'm Kryptonian. I'm what he hates. And if he's given a chance to face me, to defeat me, he's going to take it. Which means I'll have a chance to defeat him."

  
"A slim chance," M'gann said.

  
"There was a slim chance for everything we just did together. For all four of the curses, for fighting Astra, for even making it back here- there was a slim chance for all of that. And I did it. We did it. Now I'm going to do it again, for all our sakes. There's no other choice."

  
"I haven't seen anything," Nia put in. "Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. But if it helps, I believe in you, Kara. On this quest, you've discovered how strong you are. I don't know if you're strong enough to do this, but you're strong enough to try."

  
"And I won't stop you," Lena said. "My brother's shown his true colors. I stand with you, not him."

  
"Then let's get going." _Before I lose my nerve_ , she added silently, but she left that part unsaid. Actually, despite what she had expected to feel- nervous, on edge, afraid of what she was about to do- she found herself oddly calm. The only thing she felt was determination. What she was doing had to be done, and that was all there was to it. Like so many of her friends had done over the course of the quest, she was taking her fate into her own hands. And, coincidentally, the fate of her beloved country along with it. But this time she didn't shy away from the pressure. This time she was ready for it.

  
In fact, by the time they reached the ornately carved doors leading to the throne room, she was more than ready. She was seething. Just the fact that Lex had used her, sent her off on a useless quest in order to rip her homeland away from her- it infuriated her. Lex had no place in this throne room, no place in this palace, and she intended to force him out of it, no matter what it cost her.

  
Once again, she didn't waste time knocking politely. The heavy wooden door gave way under a flurry of kicks, and she stepped quickly through it, Lena at one side and Kal on the other, leaning heavily on Alex with the others clustering behind her, various weapons drawn and ready.

  
The sight of the Luthor king on the Kryptonian throne sent a hot stab of anger through Kara's chest. Lex looked so similar to the way he had looked the first time they met him- richly dressed, with the silver crown resting on his brow and the green dragon pendant dangling from his neck. His eyes widened in surprise at their less-than-civil entrance, but he quickly rearranged his features back into sneering superiority.

  
"Well, look who it is," he said. "The wandering princess, back from her magical travels at last. I didn't expect you back so soon. Or at all, truth be told."

  
"You know what I didn't expect?" Lena spoke up, her voice sharp and angry. "I didn't expect to find my brother imposing himself as the dictator of a country that never did us any harm. I never expected to hear from you again after I left. How fitting that you only make an effort to find me because you wanted to use me."

  
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Lena dear. Mother may have been an evil queen, but she was a strong one. I learned much from her. Including never to let such petty things as right and wrong get in the way of what you want." He lifted a hand to the dragon pendant. "When you command the power I do, you can decide what's wrong and right for yourself."

  
"You're a madman," Brainy said. "And it's time someone stood up and said it."

  
"It's time someone stood up and fought," Kara added.

  
Lex threw his head back with a scornful little laugh. "We already tried that, didn't we, dragon-slayer? It didn't go so well."

  
But Kal's blue eyes were steady, and he folded his arms across his chest, his voice measured and even. "She wasn't talking about me."

  
"You're joking."

  
"I'm afraid not." Kara modeled her voice on her cousin's. "I didn't come as far as I did to come back to this. You took my country when it was at its weakest and had no way to defend itself. You're a coward, Lex Luthor, and I want the world to see it. So fight me fairly, or announce to the world that you hide behind your magic because you can't even face a girl in single combat."

  
A flicker of rage crossed Lex's face, and Kara had to hide a satisfied smile. She had struck him where it hurt, attacked the Luthor pride, and he would never let it go unpunished. "You and me," she said. "No magic. No tricks. The winner takes Kryptonia and the loser leaves peacefully."

  
"He'll never do it, Kara." Lena scoffed. "Without magic? He's nothing."

  
Lex's eyes flashed. "I'll have you know, sweet Lena, that the Luthor line is far more than magic. Perhaps you need a reminder of just what this family is willing to do. And perhaps seeing me defeat your friend the princess will serve as that reminder. A duel of honor this may be, Kara Zor-El, but be warned- I will show no mercy."

  
Kara planted her hands on her hips. "I'm ready any time you like." 

  
Lex smiled again, the same dark, chilling smile, and brushed a finger over the green dragon pendant. "Oh, princess. Why wait?"

  
The world tipped sideways, spinning at a dizzying speed, and Kara cried out. When her vision cleared, she found herself standing in the castle courtyard, dressed in armor with a sword in her hand. She glanced around wildly, blinking against the sudden blinding light of the sun. She caught sight of Alex, J'onn and the others clustered on one wall, obviously still disoriented. But Lex...where was Lex?

  
"Kara, look out!" It was Mon-El who shouted the words, somehow managing to shake off the confusion of whatever spell Lex had used to conjure them here. She whirled around, bringing her sword up just in time to meet the powerful strike of Lex's own blade.

  
"I thought you said you were ready," he taunted her. "Aren't you used to magic by now?"

  
"I don't need it," Kara retorted, gritting her teeth as she struggled to hold up her blade under the pressure of his. He struck more and more heavily, determined to batter her down by sheer, overpowering force if need be. She made herself focus, blocked out the fear of everything that rested on the outcome of the fight and put all her thought and energy into the fight itself. Breaking quickly away from him, she darted a few steps away, using her smaller size to her advantage, forcing him to come to her. Her heart was beating quickly; it was a long time since she'd been in a swordfight, especially one like this. _I can do it. I have to do it._

  
They danced back and forth across the courtyard, first one and then the other gaining the upper hand. And little by little, Kara began to feel a spark of hope. She was smaller than Lex, faster, more agile. She was tiring him out.

  
Lex knew it. For a while he kept on, his strikes growing wilder as his fury mounted. But the angrier he got, the sloppier he was, and the easier Kara found it to dodge his blows. Now she wasn't just defending herself from him. Now she was making attacks of her own. Lex snarled his hatred, lowering the blade of his sword a few inches and stepping quickly away from her. Kara saw her chance and moved in.

  
It was a mistake. The Luthor king whirled around, his hand once again on the green dragon pendant. He shouted something in a language Kara couldn't understand. "No!" Kal cried out, and she saw him reach for her from the walltop, as if he could have done her any good. 

  
But the magic found her first. The pain was overwhelming, sending her to her knees, the sword falling from suddenly trembling hands. It was as if pure lightning was running through her veins, and she could barely breathe through it, trying to blink away the greenish haze that had fallen over her vision. She glanced up at the others through bleary eyes. Alex's face was contorted with fury, Kal and J'onn struggling to hold her back. Lena's face was as white as chalk, M'gann gripping her hand. Brainy stood stoic and silent, only his eyes betraying his worry, and Mon-El was gripping the top of the wall so tightly his knuckles were white. Nia looked seconds away from charging into the fight herself, and Winn, in contrast, looked seconds away from collapsing under the weight of worry. Kara forced herself to focus on their faces, to think about everything they had done for her. What would happen to them if she didn't win this? She couldn't leave them in Lex's hands. And her people, all the people who had watched and waited for her to return from the quest. She couldn't fail them. She couldn't leave her country to a tyrant, no matter what it cost her.

  
Somehow, some way, she found the strength to struggle to her feet, closing her shaking hand around the hilt of her sword. Lex brushed a finger across the dragon pendant again, sending another wave of the terrible curse crashing over her, but she fought through it, refusing to let herself fall. _Stronger than magic. Stronger than him._

  
Lex's face twisted into a terrifying sneer. He raised his sword, readying for the final strike. "A noble effort, Your Royal Highness," he hissed. "Doomed from the start. But noble all the same." He raised the weapon high and brought it swiftly down.

  
On where she had been just a moment before. As the sword came down, Kara threw herself upwards in a last, desperate attempt to save herself, to end this. For a single instant, she flew.

  
She came down on her feet just behind him, leveling her sword at his neck, her voice rough and raspy from the effects of the terrible spell, her breath coming in heaving gasps. "Do you yield?" she shouted.

  
He was silent, every muscle of his body tight with the shock and fury of her sudden, unexpected move. She shouted it again, and this time it was not a question. "Yield!"

  
And, slowly, darkly, his tone seething with hatred, Lex spoke. "I yield."

  
Those words proved to be the catalyst for a flurry of activity. Nia leapt from the walltop, trapping the Luthor king in a blue rope of magic she had formed from thin air, ensuring there were no more tricks he could play. Kal reached out, ripping the green dragon pendant from his enemy's neck and crushing it under his boot. Dimly Kara could hear J'onn giving orders, Alex snarling threats in the dark monarch's direction, Lena bidding goodbye to the brother she had now turned her back on. But she didn't really hear the words. Her mind could only focus on one thing. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she fell heavily, Mon-El running quickly forward to catch her with Brainy just behind.

  
“It’s over,” she breathed, still unable to believe it. “It’s over.”

  
“Yes, Kara. It’s over. You’re home, and your home is safe. The quest is over. You won.”

  
 _It’s over. It’s over. It’s over._ The words echoed in her mind, forming a joyful, chaotic symphony. This was the end of the adventure, the moment she had dreamed of for months. She was home. The kingdom was safe. The curse was broken. _It’s over._

  
Something bubbled up from deep inside her, something she hadn’t expected. Whether it came from joy or from relief, she couldn’t have said and she didn’t care. It was laughter, bright and clear and happy, filled with joy and triumph at all she had achieved. She had fought magic. She was _stronger_ than magic. She had made her own fate, broken her own curse, and saved her kingdom. She had found a family that would forever hold a piece of her heart. She was happy.

  
She laughed, and she never wanted to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thy bard, dear readers, is slightly unhappy with this chapter, because thy bard’s fight scenes doth suck. But ‘twould not be Supergirl without a duel with Lex, so I hath done the best I could to bring this story to a satisfying almost-conclusion, in which it is revealed beyond a shadow of a doubt that our heroine is truly stronger than magic. I shall return soon with the Epilogue!


	35. Epilogue

All over the kingdom, as the word spread that Lex had been defeated, celebrations began to erupt. Bells rang, music played, people poured out of their houses to see if the story was true. And when they found that it was, that Sleeping Beauty had come home and vanquished Lex, nothing could restrain their joy. There were parties and dances and parades and bonfires, singing and dancing and cheering. Things didn't go back to normal right away; life just didn't work like that. Lex had done some damage during his short-lived reign as king of Kryptonia, and it would take time for that damage to be reversed. But the triumphant return of Sleeping Beauty, broken curses in hand and no suitor in sight, did wonders for the spirit of the kingdom. No longer did the people have to cower in fear of a magical madman. The story of the quest spread far and wide, carried even beyond the kingdom's borders. Now, when tales of dark magic crept throughout Kryptonia, the people had only to point to the palace and remember that their princess was stronger than any curse that might come. With the rightful king back in power, and all the wrongs of Lex's reign beginning to be set right, the mood that seized the kingdom was a mood of hope. No spell could hold Kryptonia anymore, and within a few months, it was well on its way to being the vibrant, happy kingdom it was meant to be.

There were other reasons for happiness, too. In the months following the quest, every person who had been a part of it found their happy ending.

The first one happened right in Kryptonia. After a little convincing from Alex and Kara, plus a reassurance from Kal that he was willing to let bygones be bygones, J'onn decided not to return to his sleepy little village. Instead, he and M'gann settled down in a pleasant, peaceful little cottage a short distance away from the palace. J'onn had no desire to return to his former position as Captain of the Guard, but his insight and experience made him a valuable advisor and he was often called on when there were difficult decisions to be made. It was good to see him happy, learning how to live again, and if Kara was being honest, she had worried about what she'd do without him. He had become a second father to her and Alex both, and it was reassuring to know he would always be there when they needed him.

Alex, too, found happiness in Kryptonia. The quest had opened Kal's eyes to the power of magic, and even though it had been defeated and the people no longer feared it, he knew there was always a possibility of another magic-wielding foe springing up. On J'onn's advice, he created an elite group of knights who were trained to deal with not only the regular threats, but magical ones as well. The Department of Enchanted Operations, it was called, and there was no one more qualified than Alex to lead it. She and her black-armored knights soon became a familiar sight all across the kingdom, and though no one really knew what the DEO was up to at any given time, the people were glad to have it. For Alex, it provided her with a sense of purpose that she hadn't found anywhere else. She had not been meant to be a lady of the court, to follow all the rules of society. Which meant the DEO was perfect for her, since there was no need for social graces and she was free to make the rules herself. Adventure, as she often told Kara when she returned from one mission or another, agreed with her.

Not every story came to an end on Kryptonian soil. It was Lena, perhaps, who faced the biggest change out of all of them. She had never wanted power, never craved the crown as the rest of the Luthor family did. But with Lex imprisoned for his crimes, there was no one else to lead the Luthor kingdom. And once the people learned that their lost princess was found at last, they begged her to take the crown. They remembered clearly how kind and gentle and understanding Lena had been as a princess, and after years of Lex's leadership, they were desperate for a lighter hand. Though at first Lena was hesitant, not wanting to be seen as just another opportunistic Luthor, she eventually realized how much her people needed her. And so, in a simple, elegant ceremony attended by only a handful of those closest to her, with throngs of citizens waiting outside to welcome her when she emerged, the lost Luthor princess became the new Luthor queen. The work of undoing centuries of tyranny would not be an easy undertaking, but Lena had never been one to shy away from a challenge, and as the work went on she confessed to Kara that she was beginning to enjoy it. She made frequent visits to Kryptonia, and her friendship with Kara remained strong as the Luthor kingdom blossomed.

Other kingdoms changed as well. Kara kept her promise to Mon-El, and used her position as the famed Kryptonian princess to put pressure on his parents to change their ways. They did so grudgingly, and it took some time before the people felt any real difference, but eventually a glimmer of hope returned to Daxam. Mon-El resumed his outlaw ways, growing even bolder as his parents' iron fists were forced to loosen. He and Kara weren't able to communicate as often as she would have liked, but he found the time to send a hasty letter every so often, and once in a while he'd manage to slip back to Kryptonia. These meetings were secretive, few and far between, but Kara treasured them, and every time some new tale of Robin Hood's exploits found its way into Kryptonian gossip, it always brought a smile to her face.

As for Nia, she returned to the mountain cottage with Eve, but her power was always growing, and it was not surprising for Kara to walk into her room to find that Nia had magicked a message onto her desk. Whether it was about something she had seen in a dream, or an update on how things were for her, or simply one of the random tangents Nia had always been prone to, the messages were always a welcome surprise for Kara. (Sometimes Nia would skip the message and simply magic herself into Kryptonia, which was a slightly more startling surprise, but no less welcome).

But not all of their little band chose such unconventional paths for their lives. For one of them, the ending to their part in the quest could have been the end to any storybook, complete with true love's kiss and wedding bells ringing. It seemed that Princess Ayla, as Winn had feared, didn't like the fact that he wasn't a prince...and decided to fix that problem by traveling to Kryptonia and proposing to him. As she explained it, marrying a princess would make him a prince, and after that, what else could his family say about it? After a beautiful wedding ceremony- one which all the questers managed to be present for- the happy couple was off to Ayla's kingdom. It was a long journey, which meant Kara didn't get to see much of Winn, but he was always sure to visit at least once a year, and letters flew back and forth between them. It was through one of those letters that Kara learned of the arrival of little Princess Mary. Originally, Winn wrote, they had wanted to name the baby after her, but had eventually decided to name the new princess after his mother instead. To make up for it, he and Ayla wanted Kara to be Mary's "non-fairy godmother," a role Kara was more than happy to take. She couldn't have imagined a better future for Winn. He had finally put his family behind him, and was now free to enjoy life with a family of his own.

If Winn's happy ending was the most conventional, Brainy's was the strangest. The Huntsman had always been somewhat aloof, and that didn't change now that Lex was out of the picture. He spent most of his time in Kryptonia, lending his intellect anywhere it was needed and working closely with Alex and the DEO, but it was not unusual for him to disappear for days or weeks at a time, wandering from kingdom to kingdom. At first Kara had worried about him, but eventually, after bringing the subject up with him, he had reassured her. "I never had a home, not really," he had said. "I found one on the quest, but it wasn't a kingdom. It was all of you. So whether I'm here, or with Lena, or with Winn and Ayla, or with Nia up in Daxam- I'm happy, Kara. I'm happy in my own way." 

In the end, that's what all of them were- happy in their own ways. And Kara? She was happy too. The life she was living now was the one she had dreamed of. She spent her days helping her cousin rule Kryptonia, playing with her little nephews, or simply roaming the countryside the way she and Alex used to do. Cat was a frequent visitor, popping up any time and any place she wanted, and once in a while Astra would make a quick, clandestine visit. And there were always other adventures cropping up, not as big as the quest but still exciting. With Alex at her side like always, and her friends always ready to stand with her, Kara kept her kingdom safe, enjoying a life full of all the things she wanted- family, friends, and a little excitement every so often. True love? Maybe she'd find it, one day, but for now, life was everything she could have hoped for. Sleeping Beauty had come awake. The quest was over, and Kara was home.

And so this story ends as all stories should- _and they all lived happily ever after.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all I’ve got. I’ve had such a fun time imagining this bizarre little AU, and I hope y’all had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. I’ll be keeping the Tumblr ask blog open for a little while longer, so if you’d like a closer look at any of the happy-ever-afters, maybe more details about what happens after this fic, feel free to send a request about it! I’ve also got a few more AUs in the works, so keep an eye out for those! Thanks for sticking with me through thirty-five chapters of this weird little plot bunny, and I hope you enjoyed it! :D


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